Reimagining Transportation in Alexandria

Seminary Road and scooters: Those were the two topics that dominated many of Yon Lambert’s conversations throughout 2019 and into early this year. 

Lambert, director of Transportation and Environmental Services (T&ES) for the City of Alexandria, said that while those highly-visible topics are important, decisions made about them are actually rooted in years of policy that envisions a city where residents can safely get around town in a variety of ways.

“The one word that most captures what it is that we’re trying to provide people is ‘choice’,” Lambert said from a City Hall conference room in late December. “Our goal is to make sure we are providing people with a range of options for how to move around safely and efficiently.”

2019 was a particularly investment-heavy year as Alexandria worked toward providing more transit choices to residents:

•    The City and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) broke ground on the new Potomac Yard Metro Station.

•    The Alexandria Transit Company (DASH) adopted the new Alexandria Transit Vision (ATV) Plan — a complete reimagining of the local bus network — that will “create a more useful and equitable bus network that encourages more people to get to more places using transit,” accord-ing to the ATV website.

•    Alexandria made significant progress on its SmartMobility plan, which is modernizing the way traffic and transit are managed.

Many residents say the investments are working: According to the 2018 National Citizen Survey Community Livability Report for Alexandria, “For mobility, respondents’ scores for ease of travel by alternative modes (walking, bicycle and public transit) were higher than in other communities nationwide.” 

That doesn’t mean getting around Alexandria — or anywhere in Northern Virginia — is easy. Multiple studies, including reports from Inrix (a Washington-based firm that analyzes traffic problems) and the Texas Transportation Institute, have given Northern Virginia the unwanted title of having some of the worst traffic in the nation.

The question is what to do about it... 

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Alexandria Living asked residents this winter about their biggest transportation concerns. Below is a sample of responses — read all of them here. 

“If Alexandria’s goal is to create a great place to live, it will have to improve the way city officials bring together transit professionals, boards and commission members, elected officials, designers, developers, and the public to solidify a shared vision.” – Rafael Lima

“To improve Alexandria’s transportation performance, travel lanes must be maintained on major arteries and throughput must be prioritized over the idealistic implementation of a multi-modal transportation plan that simply isn’t serving Alexandria best.” – Alexis Sargent

“I would like to see the restoration of many streets recently ‘road dieted’ to four-lanes so we can have sound traffic flow to expedite travel through to 395, the Wilson Bridge and 495. Alleviating traffic congestion will go a long way to restoring quality of life for many Alexandrians now stuck in traffic, losing time they can never recoup.” – Fran Vogel

“The city regularly complains they don’t have enough traffic officers to patrol. Speeds cameras would solved this instantly. Further, hands-free smartphone use should be the law everywhere in Virginia especially in the era of Waze. People with their noses in phones are a huge hazard for bikers, pedestrians and other motorists.” – Peter Turner

Read more opinions from Alexandria area residents here.

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THE ALEXANDRIA MOBILITY PLAN

As part of the overall effort to increase safety and efficiency, City officials are working on a new Alexandria Mobility Plan, set to be released in 2020. The Alexandria Mobility Plan is an update to the City’s Transportation Master Plan, which was last fully updated in 2008.

First, some history: The City of Alexandria’s 1993 Transportation Master Plan focused on roads and intersections that city officials wanted to build. By 2008, city officials incorporated plans for people who walk, bike and use transit, including the biggest idea to come from that plan — the creation of transit corridors, Lambert said.

Since 2008, smart phones have saturated the market, Waze (a popular mobile app that recommends efficient routes and warns of traffic issues) launched, and Uber, Lyft and other ride-share services emerged. Dockless mobility — primarily scooters, but also electric bikes and now, mopeds — hit the streets, as well.

The new Alexandria Mobility Plan (alexandriava.gov/MobilityPlan) is designed to think about how people move with a nod to the effects of technology.

In a region that’s rapidly urbanizing and facing no slowdown in growth, “the only way to move around safely and efficiently moving forward is by finding more ways to help people get around,” Lambert said. “None of the transportation policies we’ve adopted as a City have said that we shouldn’t let people drive through the City, so we’ve been making large-scale investments in transit to help all users of our streets make safe choices for commuting and daily errands.”

MOVING SMARTER

With an eye toward technology, which could someday include driverless cars, Alexandria is moving forward with its SmartMobility initiative.

“Alexandria is committed to investment in transportation technologies that improve road safety and traffic management while preparing the City to take advantage of future transportation infrastructure advancements, such as self-driving cars and real-time traffic management,” according to the City’s SmartMobility website at alexandriava.gov/SmartMobility.

The City’s investment in transit and transportation choices include massive capital projects such as broadband and IT infrastructure improvements, as well as SmartMobility.

SmartMobility involves implementing transportation technologies that improve road safety and traffic management while also readying the City to take advantage of future transportation advancements like self-driving cars and real-time traffic management.

“What we want our signals to be able to do is adapt all the time to traffic conditions, but also to talk to each other so one traffic signal is not only telling another traffic signal to adjust when there’s a lot of traffic,” Lambert said, “but also to adjust when there’s a bus coming and there are a lot of people on that bus.”

That’s already starting to happen: “Alexandria is rolling out intelligent traffic signals that respond and adapt to real-time vehicle location and movement data, optimizing traffic flow, decreasing delays, and reducing stops at various intersections throughout the city. The new signals are equipped with technology to prioritize transit and emergency vehicles, allowing equipped vehicles to request preemption at intersections and bypass stopped vehicles or congestion,” according to the City’s SmartMobility website.

Other technology already in place includes field devices such as traffic cameras and pavement sensors that can capture real-time data. 

“How we manage the flow of traffic is almost as important to managing congestion as adding lanes,” Lambert said.

Of course, infrastructure (both physical and virtual) costs money. “There’s a lot of money going into this program, almost entirely grant funded,” Lambert said. “The funding agencies recognize that particularly in urban areas, this is a really important part of safety and congestion mitigation.”

And some residents have expressed concern about privacy. Some elements of smart streets programs use Bluetooth signals from drivers’ smartphones to measure traffic volume and speed.

“Unlike an app, streets and parks can’t require their users to check a dialog box consenting to how their personal information will be used before granting access. In public spaces where personal information is collected — take video footage that records people’s faces in a crowd — there is no easy way for people to opt out of giving their consent,” wrote Alex Ryan of MaRS Solutions Lab in a QZ.com opinion piece last year.

The key is ensuring that companies providing these services are fully anonymizing data — or you can shut your phone off while driving.

VISION ZERO

In 2017, Alexandria joined an increasing number of cities that adopted Vision Zero. “Vision Zero is a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all.

First implemented in Sweden in the 1990s, Vision Zero has proved successful across Europe — and now it’s gaining momentum in major American cities,” according to the Vision Zero Network, a not-for-profit organization that promotes the strategy.

“For too long, we’ve considered traffic deaths and severe injuries to be inevitable side effects of modern life. While often referred to as ‘accidents,’ the reality is that we can prevent these tragedies by taking a proactive, preventative approach that prioritizes traffic safety as a public health issue,” according to the organization.

To do that, Vision Zero calls for road systems and transportation policies minimize the errors in judgment people make while driving, biking or walking. This means lower speed limits, safer intersections and an educational component to make people aware of road changes and conditions, as well as safe practices.

Unfortunately, you can’t engineer away stupidity. 

Despite the City’s best efforts to improve safety, some people will make bad choices. It’s all too common to see drivers who speed, tailgate, cross the center line to avoid speed cushions, run red lights, or illegally pass speed-limit-abiding drivers; some bikers blow through intersections at high speeds, and some pedestrians jaywalk, adding to the chaos.

While the goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and several injuries is laudable, some of the methods used to move toward that goal can be controversial. This year, New York City’s Uniformed Firefighters Association officials said Vision Zero is increasing response times for emergency vehicles because of poor planning.

Here in Alexandria, there have been a number of questions and concerns from residents about both the slowdown in regular commutes and whether emergency response times are slower on Seminary Road near INOVA’s Alexandria Hospital.

Through official channels, Alexandria Fire Department Chief Corey Smedley, who was acting chief during the Seminary Road debate, said there were no complaints from emergency responders and that all the fire department’s concerns about the Seminary Road Diet have been addressed. 

Alexandria is implementing several tools toward its Vision Zero goal. Those tools include Complete Streets, Road Diets, Leading Pedestrian Intervals (which give pedestrians a few seconds to start crossing before cars get a green light), speed limit reductions, no turn on red restrictions and more. 

Frequently used in Alexandria: speed-awareness signs, which tell drivers when they are going too fast. Data from the U.S. Dept. of Transportation (USDOT) shows these signs are effective in reducing traffic speeds and increasing speed limit compliance, but they only work for a limited time before drivers start to ignore them. (In the 2020 Virginia legislation session, lawmakers are working on legislation that would allow ticket-generating speed cameras.) 

WHAT IS THE COMPLETE STREETS PROGRAM?

Many residents have confused Complete Streets with Road Diets — they are not the same, nor do they always go hand-in-hand.

Lambert described Complete Streets as a “paradigm shift in how we think about roads.”

Every time a road is scheduled for repaving in Alexandria, city officials and residents look at ways to make it safer and more usable for all types of commuters — pedestrians, bikes, scooters and cars alike. While that may include a road diet in a few select cases,

“There is no singular design prescription for Complete Streets; each one is unique and responds to its community context,” according to Alexandria’s Complete Streets website. “A complete street may include: sidewalks, bike lanes, special bus lanes, comfortable and accessible public transportation stops, frequent and safe crossing opportunities, median is-lands, accessible pedestrian signals, curb extensions, narrower travel lanes, roundabouts and more.” (Learn more about it at alexandriava.gov/CompleteStreets.)

In Alexandria, City officials have added stop signs and shared bike lanes have been implemented to create safer streets for pedestrians, bike commuters and vehicles. Residents are also noticing an increase in speed cushions, dedicated bike lanes, new sidewalks, bump outs and more.

WHAT IS A ROAD DIET?

Seminary Road was part of the Complete Streets program — and one of the cases in Alexandria where officials determined the best course of action was a Road Diet.

“A classic Road Diet typically involves converting an existing four-lane, undivided roadway segment to a three-lane segment consisting of two through lanes and a center, two-way left-turn lane,” the USDOT explains. That’s exactly what was implemented on Seminary Road in 2019.

Done correctly, the USDOT reports that Road Diets can reduce crashes by 19 to 47 percent. Additional benefits may include slower traffic, safer usage by all road users and more. “A key feature of a Road Diet is that it allows reclaimed space to be allocated for other uses, such as turn lanes, bus lanes, pedestrian refuge islands, bike lanes, sidewalks, bus shelters, parking or landscaping,” according to the USDOT.

However, road diets must be implemented smartly. Simply narrowing vehicle lanes or reducing the number of vehicle lanes will not make a street safer. In fact, done incorrectly, road diets can make a road more dangerous.

While these projects are highly visible and affect a lot of drivers, they are not a huge area of financial investment for Alexandria compared to other transportation projects and priorities.

Still, Road Diets are not without controversy, as the Seminary Road project has demonstrated:  An increasing number of residents are joining a Seminary Road anti-diet Facebook group, citing concerns about continued speeding at some times of the day, traffic backups at other times, questioning whether emergency vehicles can respond to needs in a timely manner, and lamenting that bikers and walkers aren’t making enough use of their new facilities. 

CUT-THROUGH TRAFFIC

It’s convenient (and somewhat cathartic) to blame Maryland drivers for Alexandria’s traffic woes, but it isn’t entirely their fault.

Alexandria’s own population has been increasing at a rate of about 1 percent per year since 2010, and that rate of growth is expected to continue or increase with the arrival of Amazon and other development, according to the Alexandria Mobility Plan Foundations Report. 

Much of this growth will be in northeast Alexandria near Potomac Yard and Del Ray, along the Eisenhower Avenue corridor and in the northwest corner near the Mark Center. (The report is available through alexandriava.gov/MobilityPlan.)

In addition, commuter flow is largely into the City. 2017 data from the U.S. Census Bureau showed that on a typical day, 70,600 people commute into the City of Alexandria to work, and only 57,200 commute to other jurisdictions. Another 11,100 people both live and work in Alexandria. 

Other studies have shown that during certain times of the day, more than 40 percent of traffic can be attributed to cut-through drivers.

Thus, in some ways, there’s no avoiding traffic in Alexandria — it’s just “geographic reality,” Lambert said. The City is surrounded by the Beltway, and I-395 goes right through it. Drivers from Maryland taking the Woodrow Wilson Bridge into Virginia often end up on Alexandria streets on their way to Arlington, the District, Fairfax County or the Mark Center.

Numerous residents have asked why Alexandria won’t put ‘no through traffic’ signs on secondary roads or limit access to certain roads by non-Alexandria residents through a permit program. (Until recently, it wasn't legal for Alexandria to do this, but that has changed and city staff will be considering this along with other measures.)

Other residents have suggested more aggressive measures, including physical barriers to prevent cut-through traffic from using certain residential streets.

“We can’t just cul-de-sac all the neighborhoods,” Lambert said.

Lambert said Alexandria does have a handful of roads where traffic safety conditions warranted turn restrictions during certain hours. However, these regulations can make travel more difficult for residents of those neighborhoods.

A permit program like the one being researched now could help residents by allowing only certain people to turn onto selected streets, but regular, consistent enforcement would be a challenge and a potential strain on police resources.

While doing so would force cut-through traffic to use main roads, it could also have a serious negative affect on local residents, who would just get stuck in the traffic that results from funneling all cars onto arterial roadways.

With the advent of Waze and other traffic-avoidance apps, drivers would simply end up on other roads.

“Really, these programs would just be shifting the problem from one road to another, not eliminating or reducing cut-through traffic overall,” Lambert said.

Legally, courts have determined that Alexandria cannot simply ban Waze, as some residents have suggested doing.

So what is Alexandria doing about cut-through traffic? 

•    Road design is part of the equation: By designing roads to accommodate local traffic and enhance safety for all users, highways and major arterial roads will look like a better, faster option for commuters.

•    The Virginia Dept. of Transportation is working additional information signs for Beltway and I-395 Drivers (such as those signs that say “D.C. Line 9 miles, 10 minutes”) that can encourage drivers to stay on the highways.

•    Smart Mobility in Alexandria will help improve signal timing to keep people moving on the arterials and provide data for traffic engineers to make well-informed decisions. 

•    The Alexandria Transit Vision will help make public transit more efficient and a more attractive option. Plus, an increase in regional cooperation combined with more investments will make transit more efficient and effective for commuters, which may also help alleviate congestion.

•    Intelligent development will help, as well: Alexandria is increasingly focused on new developments that are walkable, mixed-use and “live, work, play”-focused, which can help reduce car trips.

Residents may also consider making adjustments when that's possible — planning ahead to combine trips, running errands during off-peak hours, or adjusting work schedules or telecommuting.

And before getting in the car, as traffic reporter and local legend Bob Marbourg used to say, “Pack your patience.”