Residents and commuters who use Seminary Road aren’t spending more than an extra minute in traffic on the 0.9 mile stretch that was put on a Road Diet, according to a report to the Alexandria City Council Tuesday night.
The report stated:
“For most of the day, the City’s Bluetooth travel time monitoring system shows the road is functioning similarly to before implementation. A tradeoff for the peak half hour increases (30 sec – 1 minute) is a street with safer conditions for people who drive, walk, bike and use transit.”
Data from Transportation & Environmental Services revealed the following:
“Across the day, average travel times have generally stayed the same:
- Increased by an average of 4 percent (6 seconds) in the westbound direction and have decreased by an average of 6 percent (about 12 seconds) in the eastbound direction
- In the eastbound directions, travel times are better or relatively the same as they were during the before period except for the 5pm hour (7 percent increase or about 6 seconds)
- During the worst 15-minute period of the day (in the westbound direction from 8:15am – 8:30am) travel times have increased by 30 percent (about 1 minute).
- Across the entire morning peak period (7am-9am), there has been an 8 percent increase in travel times from 3 minutes to 3.2 minutes (about 12 seconds)
- During the evening peak, the greatest increase was between 5:45pm and 6:00pm when there was a 14 percent increase, from 3.4 minutes to 3.9 minutes (about 30 seconds).”
The data was based on travel times on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays on days where there were no weather events or holidays.
Westbound travel times have been affected by the road diet more than Eastbound travel times, according to the report.
Online, residents have been complaining more about Westbound traffic on Seminary Road, noting significant backups in the morning hours heading toward I-395 and the Mark Center.
Hillary Orr, Deupty Director of Transportation & Environmental Services, said, “We understand people’s time is valuable” — and that the delays are slightly longer than anticipated, but people are generally able to get through traffic lights/intersections within one signal.
City of Alexandria
During Tuesday evening’s City Council meeting, Transportation & Environmental Services and the Alexandria City Police Department noted a slight uptick in reportable crashes.
There have been a number of crashes that are “unreportable” – drivers exchange information and move on without calling the police, or the crash is not major enough to report to the Commonwealth.
The reportable crashes on Seminary Road in the “reportable crashes” slide (below) were not in the “Road Diet” section east of Howard Road. And, the crash that resulted from a Virginia State Police pursuit was not included in this data due to bureaucratic delays.
City of Alexandria
A few years ago, the Virginia legislature increased the threshold of what is considered “reportable,” Police Chief Mike Brown told the Council. “Part of the reason the Commonwealth changed [it] was so that people could resolve these issues amongst themselves without involving insurance," Brown said.
The threshold is now $1,500. If an airbag deploys or a tow is required, it is likely that the cost of repairs will exceed that amount. But there is some discretion among drivers on whether or not to call police and report a crash, and non-visible damage may later cost more than drivers can estimate on the scene.
In terms of police being able to drive along Seminary Road quickly, Brown said, “We’ve had no reports of issues with police vehicles traversing the roadway.”
In response to a question from Council member Amy Jackson, Brown noted that if traffic was significantly backed up, there may be situations where a police vehicle is delayed while waiting for cars to get out of the way.
Two Different Medians
The design of the medians in Seminary Road have been a point of contention among residents, who are voicing concerns that emergency vehicles cannot drive down Seminary Road without facing delays.
Hillary Orr, Deputy Director of Transportation & Environmental Services, brought up the median design and explained that the “non-traversable” median is only in an area where cars are able to pull over into the bike lane to allow emergency vehicles to pass.
City of Alexandria
Fire Officials Respond to Response Time Questions
During the City Council meeting, Assistant Fire Chief Michael Cross told Jackson that "he had concerns about some of the options" initially about how emergency vehicles would be able to use the road.
After the Sept. 2019 Road Diet vote, when the City Council approved the lane reduction, Cross said, "We had very extensive conversations with the traffic group to design the mountable curbs ... without having to navigate around them."
In response to a question from Council member Mo Seifeldein, Fire Chief Corey Smedley said comparing response times from before the Road Diet to after it is difficult at best.
"There's no apples to apples comparison we can capture," Smedley said. The route chosen, time of day, starting point and destination make comparisons difficult between response times before and after the Seminary Road diet.
Council member Canek Aguirre asked whether council will be able to talk to drivers directly about their experience. In response, Chief Smedley said fire officials have not heard any complaints from drivers.
"We have reached out internally with our analytics person to try to find opportunities to see if we're seeing any kind of variances... [But] We cannot adequately do an apples to apples."
"What we do is when a project is brought to our attention, is we provide information to ensure we can navigate the roadways so we can respond," Smedley said in response to additional questions from Jackson. "We clearly articulate what the measures we need to put be in place for us to navigate the roads. For Seminary Road, those were put in place."
However, the Alexandria Times reported this year based on documents from Freedom of Information Act requests, that those adjustments and discussions were much later than city staff initially indicated to residents. Further, FOIA documents revealed that fire officials would have preferred to leave Seminary Road in a four-lane configuration.
Smedley: "The way this roadway was designed, we can traverse it."
Jackson: "In rush hour?"
Smedley: "Period."
Fire apparatus have 6 inches of clearance from the ground, which is reportedly enough to drive over the 3 to 3-3/4 inch red medians, even if they have to slow down a little bit to do so safely. Where the median is higher and features signage — at Beth El Hebrew Congregation — there is room for cars to pull over to the side of the road to let emergency vehicles pass.
Chief Smedley said that because of the way the Seminary Road Diet situation went down, there are now changes to how the fire department and TES work together, including ride alongs and better communication around street design and related policies.
The Alexandria City Police Department is also increasing meetings with city staff regarding road projects to ensure police department response times are protected. "I would say in the last year, the learning curve for us has been the creation of the meetings between us at TES," Brown said.
City Council did not allow residents who attended Tuesday night's City Council meeting to ask questions.
Going Back to Four Lanes
Council member Canek Aguirre, late in the Council meeting, asked what "permanent restoration" would cost for fully returning Seminary Road to its previous configuration.
TES Director Yon Lambert said the cost would be approximately $700,000 to restore the road property and in a way that would last and not require frequent repairs.
For about $500,000, the median islands could be removed and "slurry sealed." Another, less expensive option at $300,000 was possible recommended due to projected poor work quality at that price point.
"This whole issue has been very divisive and has gotten very nasty, especially on the online platforms, but like we talked about, we are listening to everyone and we are reading the emails," Aguirre said.
Mountable islands and the sidewalk are his chief concerns. "I just want to point out that while we voted on a decision, we are still looking to make adjustments to it," he said.
City staff reportedly did talk to staff members at Inova Alexandria Hospital, which declined to take a formal decision at the time. "They are not emergency response professionals, they do not operate emergency response vehicles, and they essentially deferred to the fire department," Lambert said.
MacArthur Students Transfer
“There have been some concerns that we heard,” said Hillary Orr, Deputy Director of Transportation & Environmental Services, about the relocation of MacArthur students to Patrick Henry and the impact on traffic.
City officials predict just 60 additional trips on Seminary Road in the morning, and just 20 in the evening. There will be at least 6 additional buses for MacArthur students to travel to Patrick Henry, according to the city staff report.“This is really our best guess,” Orr said.
However, right now, about 20 percent of MacArthur students are walkers, 50 percent take the bus and 30 percent are driven to school by a parent or guardian.
There are more than 650 students at the school, according to data from the school system, so more than 200 are driven to school by a parent or guardian currently.
City officials predict more students will be taking the bus once the school moves to the Patrick Henry campus and are encouraging parents to use that option.
Council Member Amy Jackson brought up the issue of the 100-plus students who are in after care programs, whose working parents often pick them up between 5 – 6 p.m., and will add to rush hour traffic on Seminary Road. There are 130 kids in MacArthur Elementary School after-school care programs, city staff reported.
For more information on the city staff Seminary Road report, click here.
Video of the Council meeting will be available at City Dockets & Webcasts page this week.
