Dedicated Bus Lanes, Other Improvements Under Consideration for Duke Street

From Landmark Mall to the King Street Metro, the City of Alexandria is looking for feedback on how to improve one of Alexandria's most-traveled roads.

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Dedicated bus lanes are one of the possibilities for better traffic flow along miles of Duke Street between Landmark Mall and the King Street Metro Station, and a recently-awarded grant to the City will push the improvements forward in the coming years.

In July 2020, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) gave the City of Alexandria $75 million from the 2020-2025 Six-Year Program — funding that will be used to help plan and construct the first phase of improvements for Duke Street. This $75 million was awarded specially for transit improvements and will not include additional lanes for cars, but the improvements are expected to make traffic flow for both cars and transit more efficient.

Now that the $75 million is available, Alexandria city officials are inviting residents to weigh in on the plans — again.

“We recognize that a lot of the engagement on this project took place a while ago, and that is exactly why we are reengaging with the community now to reevaluate past decisions and identify a path forward and design that embraces the vision of the people who live near, work on and use the Duke Street corridor,” said Yon Lambert, director of Transportation & Environmental Services (T&ES) in Alexandria.

Starting Monday (see schedule below), City officials are starting “an extensive 18-month process to identify the community’s desired transit, street design, and safety improvements for the Duke Street Corridor, all while keeping congestion relief and quicker commutes top of mind.”

The vision outlined in the application for the already-awarded grant includes the following:

  • dedicated transit lanes between Landmark Mall and Jordan Street (Jordan Street is located on the east end of the Foxchase Shopping Center, which is anchored by Harris Teeter)
  • dedicated transit lanes between Roth Street and Diagonal Road (just before the Shell and Mobil gas stations on the eastbound side to the lion statues in the Carlyle District)
  • Transit Signal Priority (TSP) will be implemented along the entire section of road to improve speed and reliability of bus schedules.

While traffic is much heavier than it was when the D.C. metro area essentially shut down in March 2020 due to the pandemic, there is no way to know how many government workers, contractors and others who have been working from home will eventually return to a regular, daily commute to an office. That is something City of Alexandria officials are watching closely — and will continue to watch for several years.

Lambert explained the City’s traffic sensors indicate that travel times in Alexandria now (as of June 2021) are still about 30 percent faster than they were in the spring of 2019, mostly because so many residents are continuing to telecommute.

Even if many people are able to continue telecommuting long term, Lambert said, city officials believe that they will “need to continue to provide transportation choices, and that transit will still be an important part of our transportation network, especially with the new transit-oriented developments at Landmark Mall and Potomac Yard, among others throughout the City and region.”

The original application projected “under the full build, nearly double the existing weekday transit ridership on the corridor” by making transit more reliable and more frequent. According to the application: “Removing buses from general purpose lanes will also help to reduce congestion in those lanes. The project will provide a more competitive mode to single occupant vehicles, improved travel time for transit riders, and improve capacity and safety of pedestrian facilities, which improves access to transit. It also will improve bicycle facilities along the corridor (which are non-existent today), improving first/last mile connectivity. The Duke St. corridor is also a major cut-through road for regional traffic between I-395 and I-495, and the project helps Duke St. to operate more safely and efficiently.”

“Future phases (not part of this application) would build on the first phase to provide dedicated transit lanes throughout the entire corridor, and additional corridor wide pedestrian and bicycle improvements,” according to the grant application.

Telegraph Road and West Taylor Run Changes Coming

Even before the official feedback phase started Monday, residents voiced concerns about the traffic backup that spills onto eastbound Duke Street from Telegraph Road — backups that are starting to return even with relatively light commuter traffic compared to past years. Those residents are pleading with city and state officials to do something — anything — to alleviate it.

There is help coming, but it may not be in the exact form some residents are advocating. In a separate grant from the Duke Street project, the City of Alexandria has been awarded $5.7 million in funds from Virginia’s Smart Scale Program contributing to the redesign of the Duke Street and West Taylor Run Parkway intersection, which includes access points to the Telegraph Road onramp.

Both the short-term changes and long-term improvements to the intersection will be centered around two primary objectives: reducing cut-through traffic and improving safety. Traffic Adaptive Signal Control, in which traffic signal timing changes based on real-time road conditions, is part of the plan. 

“In the Central Alexandria Traffic Study, we heard loud and clear from the civic associations that the City needs to explore comprehensive solutions, some of which can be implemented in the short term and others that will require long-term commitment,” Lambert wrote in an email. “Additional roadway capacity at Telegraph  (i.e. simply adding new lanes such as a new ramp onto Telegraph) was not among the group’s policy recommendations.”

Although the City has had discussions with the Virginia Dept. of Transportation (VDOT) about adding a lane from eastbound Duke Street onto Telegraph Road, “VDOT has indicated that, after a cursory assessment, it is not feasible to add another lane to the ramp without major reconstruction of the downstream bridge over the rail line. VDOT has also indicated that addition of one lane to this ramp would have significant right-of-way impacts, and detrimental effects on traffic operations and safety if the two-lane section is not carried forward past Mill Road,” Lambert explained. Adding an additional lane would effectively necessitate widening the Telegraph Road bridge over the railroad, which would be extremely expensive, so VDOT is generally not supportive of that project.

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COMMUNITY INPUT EVENTS

The following is from Alexandria’s Duke Street In Motion Website here:

WebinarTo learn more about the project and have an opportunity to ask the project team questions, please join our community Duke Street In Motion webinar on Wednesday, June 23, from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. — sign up HERE. The webinar will be recorded and also made available later on the project webpage.

Pop-up EventsPlease join us! Duke Street In Motion’s friendly bilingual street teams will be up and down the corridor at 20 events between June 21 and June 28, keep an eye out for our teams in grey Duke Street In Motion t-shirts! Come by to fill out the feedback form, grab a project flyer, lollipop, and a freebee surprise (while supplies last)!To find a pop up near you, please visit this overall map of all the Duke Street In Motion Week pop-up events.Monday, June 21:

Tuesday, June 22:

Wednesday, June 23:

Thursday, June 24:

Friday, June 25:

Saturday, June 26:

Sunday, June 27:

Monday, June 28:

We hope to see you there!

Provide your Feedback!Duke Street In Motion Week is just the start! We invite you to provide your input HERE any time prior to July 31. The feedback form and documents are available now in English and Spanish, and check back next week for Amharic. Help us spread the word – please tell a friend!

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