$100M for 4.1 Miles

[Anonymous]

This is the top line cost for the preferred concept of the City of Alexandria for the Duke Street “Transitway.” At best, it will only have center running bus lane for 1/2 the corridor. It will only improve transit time because it reduces the number of stops by 50%. It proposes creating shared use path in a residential area with no other sidewalk options, so pedestrians accessing businesses and kids getting off bus stops will be crossing paths with cyclists going 20 MPH (maybe more with electric bikes) - note this is much different environment from shared use trails in parks.

This is an egregious amount of money, and it’s more egregious that the transportation commission of Alexandria and (likely) the advisory group will give the city cover to spend the extra $13M dollars in costs (because apparently it’s impossible to revamp a 4 miles corridor for $87M).

Honestly I support multimodal transit. Every penny spent on the PY metro was worth it. Revamping King and Seminary was worth it. The West End Transitway was worth it. The Route 1 BRT was worth it and it will be even better once expanded. But this is insane.