Updated with new information from the City of Alexandria on Friday, Sept. 27.
On the heels of a controversial decision to reduce vehicle lanes and add bicycle lanes and more safety measures to Seminary Road, Alexandria City staff are starting to take a serious look at Duke Street, especially in areas that experience the most significant backups.
Duke Street is the heaviest traveled of the east-west throughways in Alexandria. Thousands of drivers use it to access I-95 off of Telegraph Road, and backups on Duke Street eastbound in the evenings are common. Residents who live on West Taylor Run Parkway, the College Park neighborhood and Quaker Lane have long complained about cut-through traffic that makes it nearly impossible for them to get home some evenings.
Duke Street was part of the Transitway Corridor Feasibility Study the City completed back in 2012, which builds on the 2008 City Council-adopted Transportation Master Plan, which itself is up for review.
The Transitway Corridor Feasibility Study webpage from the City of Alexandria, updated in 2018, describes the Duke Street section this way:
“Duke Street/ Eisenhower Avenue (Corridor B) —This corridor would connect Alexandria to Fairfax County to the west. It has the potential to serve the Eisenhower East area, Landmark Mall, Foxchase, Alexandria Commons, the King Street Metrorail station, and portions of Old Town. The alignment of the Duke Street corridor in an approximate east/west orientation also would allow it to connect to the North-South and Van Dorn/Beauregard corridors.”
City of Alexandria officials noted that the planned Duke Street Transitway is one of three transit corridors already included in the City’s Transportation Master Plan. As part of the 2012 Transitway Corridors Feasibility Study, City Council instructed staff to develop a phased approach for the Duke Street transitway. This included a first phase that uses existing travel lanes rather than widening the roadway. Additional roadway lanes would not be added as part of this design.
The slide presented at a City Council meeting Tuesday night appeared to confuse residents. Instead of adding actual lanes, it was meant to show how the existing "outside" lanes could be repurposed and dedicated for buses and access to business and cross-streets.
The slide is here:
City of Alexandria
Alexandria staff will start a community engagement process in 2020 as the City considers how the street should look and operate, and whether the 2012 approach is still best.
Since 2012, the City has operated one transitway (Metroway) and secured more than $70 million for development of the West End Transitway. In the fall, the City and DASH expect to announce a multi-million dollar upgrade to the current AT-1 DASH route between Van Dorn Metro and Seminary Plaza as a precursor to the West End Transitway. The new “AT1 Plus” service will introduce 10-minute peak headways and extended service hours to the existing AT-1 route, which is already one of DASH’s most popular lines.
Why Duke Street is So Congested...
In the past 10 years, Telegraph Road has been revamped to provide better access to I-95 and North Kings Highway; Waze and other in-car maps have launched to route drivers around traffic jams; and the Mark Center opened, drawing thousands of workers. In addition, Landmark Mall closed and the City is working with Howard Hughes Corp., the property owner, to revamp the 51-acre site. All of these factors have increased traffic along Duke Street (or will in the coming years near Landmark), frustrating residents and commuters alike.
Currently, Duke Street is mostly two-vehicle lanes in each direction, with a center turn lane in the central part of the city. It widens to three lanes or more for stretches east near Old Town, and west near Landmark Mall. The eastbound lane leading to Telegraph Road is the most prone to back-ups, which affects traffic on West Taylor Run Parkway significantly in the evenings.
The City’s tentative plans are outlined in a request for funding from the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority — the regional organization that plans, prioritizes and funds regional transportation initiatives. NVTA is currently requesting proposals for projects for the 2024 and 2025 fiscal years.
Alexandria’s proposal will be focused on the Duke Street Transitway, according to City documents, requesting $75 million for FY 2024 – 2025, including funding for “signalization, buses, stations, some road widening, queue jump lanes, pedestrian and bicycle access.” The City received $12 million for FY 2018 – 2023 for environmental studies and design. Planning for this project will start in 2020.
The maps below (not a part of the presentation) show where these changes would or would not take place:
From Gordon Street (where Enterprise Rent-A-Car is) to Wheeler Street (McDonalds and the road to the Police headquarters), would largely remain unchanged, with two lanes in each direction for vehicles, with the outer lanes being shared with buses.
From South Quaker Lane to Roth Street (most of the section along the Alexandria Commons Shopping Center), would also remain largely unchanged — two vehicle lanes in each direction with a center turn lane, and the outer lanes being shared with buses.
Where lanes could be widened to allow for better sharing between buses and cars are in three sections (shown on the three maps below): Landmark Mall to Jordan Street, Roth Street to Taylor Run Parkway, and Callahan Drive to the King Street Metro. The proposal would add a transit lane (a third traffic lane) in each direction as well as a median/turn lane, making the roadway 7 lanes across in these sections:
It should be noted that none of this has been fully decided and the changes are not pre-determined — the City will continue studying environmental and traffic impacts, seek input from residents, seek funding and much more in the next several years.
Priorities and Plans
A transportation work session presentation to City Council on Tuesday, Sept. 24, showed priorities for investment in the next 10 years. The goal, according to the City is that “In 2022, Alexandria is regionally linked and easy to navigate regardless of resources or ability. City government supports a wide variety of safe, connected transportation options that enable access to daily activities. These options include bus, metro, bicycle, automobile, and walking. Public transportation has reliable and frequent service that is clearly communicated and understood.”
Residents who have been surveyed say the major challenges around transportation in Alexandria are congestion and cut-through traffic, competition for curb space (parking), aging infrastructure and population growth. Opportunities exist for transit-oriented development, reduced dependence on SOVs (single-occupancy vehicles, or people driving alone in their cars), emerging technology like smart signals and implanting plans for transit infrastructure.
Alexandria plans to spend significant capital in the next five years on transportation and related infrastructure.
Also Tuesday evening, Council received an update and framework document for the Smart Mobility initiative. (See the report here, which explains: “Smart Mobility is the concept of applying information technologies to roads, traffic signals, transit vehicles, and other transportation infrastructure to help us better understand how our roadway network operates. This data can be leveraged to improve quality of life in Alexandria in a variety of ways – from managing traffic to improving transit to enhancing safety to optimizing parking to streamlining emergency management.”)
Editor notes: The slide presented Tuesday evening at the City Council meeting "has caused some confusion," according to City Staff. Rather than necessarily adding several more lanes, the slide was meant to show how current lanes could be shared between different modes of transportation. The article has been edited with new information from the City's Transportation & Environmental Service division.
