The Seminary Hill Association sent a lengthy letter to City Manager Jim Parajon in which they disputed a recent Transportation and Environmental Staff’s analysis of whether the Seminary Road diet worked as planned.
Earlier this fall, city officials released a study supporting their statement that the Seminary Road Complete Streets Program mostly accomplished its goals in making the roadway safer for all users.
City Council had voted in September 2019 to put Seminary Road on a “diet,” reducing two lanes in each direction to one lane in each direction, a center turn lane and bike lanes. The decision was controversial, to say the least.
In their official report more than two years after the road was repaved, city officials said:
- Speeds decreased slightly but did not display a noticeable difference.
- Traffic did not appear to divert to neighborhood streets, with one exception: Vehicle volumes on Ft. Williams Parkway saw an increase in both directions of 12 to 33 percent.
- Peak period travel times on Seminary Road decreased by 35 to 60 seconds. Reductions eastbound were marginally greater than trips traveling west.
- Bicycle ridership on the road increased. Pedestrian usage decreased slightly.
- The percentage of drivers traveling more than 35 mph on the roadway has decreased significantly.
The Seminary Hill Association represents more than 5,400 residents living in central Alexandria. While the SHA officially opposed the road diet, a number of residents in the area supported the road diet to calm traffic on the busy street.
“The road diet project was ill-conceived and enjoyed very little support from the people most
affected by it. Since implementation, it has failed to deliver on its promises and continues to be
highly unpopular. Most troubling to our members is that the Post-Project Implementation
Evaluation document claims that the project has been very successful. It has not,” the SHA letter noted.
Among the SHA’s chief complaints were that the “before” period of traffic measurement was prior to the pandemic and the “after” period was during a time when most people were still working from home and traveling less. In addition, Douglas MacArthur Elementary School was demolished and is being rebuilt – those students are attending school next to Patrick Henry School on Taney Avenue.
“As of Spring 2022, traffic volumes were still not back to pre-COVID norms and there were widespread reports in the press of the work-from home trend continuing indefinitely,” SHA wrote. The city’s report noted that crashes decreased, but they decreased citywide as well at a similar rate due to fewer cars being on the road overall.
However, Hillary Orr, Deputy Director of Transportation for the City of Alexandria, noted that city staff “delayed collecting data until traffic volumes were more consistent with pre-pandemic levels. During the months the volumes were collected, we saw traffic volumes across the City that were fairly consistent with 2019 levels.”
Also among complaints from SHA: The design of the roadway, particularly medians installed for pedestrian safety that have been hit by drivers several times since they were installed. The repairs to the medians and signage around them come at taxpayer expense.
“While the medians have been struck a number of times,” Orr said, “there is no evidence that the islands are creating a serious safety hazard since there have been no injuries resulting from these crashes, and most were more likely due to driver error. However, the City has installed new measures to make the islands more visible to drivers.”
In addition, Alexandria Fire Department officials told T&ES that they are not aware of negative impacts to emergency response as a result of the roadway changes.
While the overall speed of drivers on the roadway has not decreased significantly (it remains around 34 mph), the number of excessive speeders — those who were most dangerous — has decreased, according to T&ES.