Washingtonian article about Alexandria

[Anonymous]

1. yes, there were collisions on King Street. No pedestrian collisions IIUC, but there were car/car collisions, and that decreased, and traffic flows on King and on other streets were not significantly impacted.

2. Getting more people heading E/W onto transit in a dedicated lane would provide an alternative, as well as move more people with less road.

3. The City weighs all citizens equally, and does not give higher weigth to those who live in more expensive houses

4. I have met people from the signals dept of T&ES, and I guarantee you, they are full believers in the idea of improving "vehicle level of service" and vehicle throughput. Its not a trivially easy thing to do when you have a lot of movements to balance. I am sure with you expertise and experience in traffic engineering, you can give them good advice though.

1. There is NO documentation that the number of collisions have decreased. NONE. And clearly traffic flows on King Street have decreased because so many people are using Braddock.

2. A transit line on Duke will not help because it does not provide enough service. And most people don't want to use transit.

3. Just because homes in Old Town or Rosemont are more expensive is NOT a reason to ignore the residents' perspectives.

4. The people from T&ES are not listening to residents about our traffic needs. That is why alternative groups are popping up. We're getting sick and tired of being bullied by a few people who have a bike-at-all-costs agenda, which doesn't meet the needs or desires of many residents.

Finally, no one is talking about discontinuing bus services or other alternatives that provide vital transportation to many people. But we do want to be able to get to work, get kids to practices, go to the doctor or dentist or pharmacy, go to the grocery store, go to the dry cleaners, etc., without it taking forever. Traffic has worsened considerably in the past 2 years and there are clear and obvious reasons why (King Street has gone from 4 lanes to 2, speed limit change on King Street, speed limit change on Quaker). Additionally, there definitely is a group of people who would like to see parking put in place at King Street and the Potomac Yard metro stations so that they would be willing to use metro.

[Anonymous]

It would be really nice to get from one part of Alexandria to another without it taking over 35 minutes. The city is only 5 miles wide at its absolute widest point. Traffic flow has not increased that appreciably.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

1. yes, there were collisions on King Street. No pedestrian collisions IIUC, but there were car/car collisions, and that decreased, and traffic flows on King and on other streets were not significantly impacted.

2. Getting more people heading E/W onto transit in a dedicated lane would provide an alternative, as well as move more people with less road.

3. The City weighs all citizens equally, and does not give higher weigth to those who live in more expensive houses

4. I have met people from the signals dept of T&ES, and I guarantee you, they are full believers in the idea of improving "vehicle level of service" and vehicle throughput. Its not a trivially easy thing to do when you have a lot of movements to balance. I am sure with you expertise and experience in traffic engineering, you can give them good advice though.

1. There is NO documentation that the number of collisions have decreased. NONE. And clearly traffic flows on King Street have decreased because so many people are using Braddock.

2. A transit line on Duke will not help because it does not provide enough service. And most people don't want to use transit.

3. Just because homes in Old Town or Rosemont are more expensive is NOT a reason to ignore the residents' perspectives.

4. The people from T&ES are not listening to residents about our traffic needs. That is why alternative groups are popping up. We're getting sick and tired of being bullied by a few people who have a bike-at-all-costs agenda, which doesn't meet the needs or desires of many residents.

Finally, no one is talking about discontinuing bus services or other alternatives that provide vital transportation to many people. But we do want to be able to get to work, get kids to practices, go to the doctor or dentist or pharmacy, go to the grocery store, go to the dry cleaners, etc., without it taking forever. Traffic has worsened considerably in the past 2 years and there are clear and obvious reasons why (King Street has gone from 4 lanes to 2, speed limit change on King Street, speed limit change on Quaker). Additionally, there definitely is a group of people who would like to see parking put in place at King Street and the Potomac Yard metro stations so that they would be willing to use metro.

1. T&ES has presented their before and after case to the Council on both traffic and collisions on King Street. Collisions did decrease, and the volume of traffic on King stayed about the same.

2. At this point no one knows what the transit improvements on Duke will look like, or how frequent the service will be

3. No, Old Town and Rosemont needs should not be ignored. Just weighted equally with everyone else. And I know people from Old Town who want more transit, more traffic calming, and do not share your concerns

4. I know of only two alternative groups that have sprung up. TrafficZen, from the group around Clover Park, and Alexandrians for Safe Streets. The latter supports traffic calming. TrafficZen, AFAIK, does not oppose traffic calming, but prioritizes keep cut through traffic (traffic going to the BRAC building) out of their neighborhood. They take issue with T&ES on the question of putting up resident only signs on their streets. It appears to be a legal question, and I do not know what the answer to that is. But its not about King Street.

As for the trips you list, other than work (where I take metrobus and rail) I usually drive for those trips, and I do not find it difficult.

The speed limit reductions have been successful and appear to be popular with local residents, if not with drivers from Md and Fairfax cutting through to BRAC. Ditto the traffic calming on King. The total losses of driver time associated with all are smal (and BTW, on King it was 4 to 3, not 4 to 2)

Not clear on your point about metro. There ARE parking garages walking distance to King Street metro.