On Thursday, May 30, the Department of Transportation & Environmental Services will host a community meeting to share the recommended design alternative for Seminary Road. Seminary Road was identified as a potential complete street in the Alexandria Transportation Master Plan and in March the city presented three alternatives for the road, two of which had bike lanes. There were some in the community who opposed any kind of road diet and bike advocates have been pushing for Alexandria to keep good on its plans. Now they have a recommended alternative.
After reviewing public input as well as considering technical analysis and consistency with Council-approved priorities, staff have developed a recommended design alternative for Seminary Road between Howard Street and Quaker Lane.
Comments will be accepted at the meeting and online until June 10th. The Traffic and Parking Board is scheduled to hear staff’s recommendation on Monday, June 24, starting at 7:30 p.m. in council chambers as City Hall. The public may speak at the meeting. Road repaving will start in September.
Among those opposing the bike lanes are the city's Republican Party.
Though the road is already considered safe by the local residents, ARCC Chairman Sean Lenehan expressed concern that significant changes could be made in spite of overwhelming community opposition, as with the recent City Council approval of the poultry slaughterhouse.
The framing of this article is bit questionable. Is the road safe? They don't say (but the city says the road diet will make is safer). Is there "overwhelming opposition"? Who knows. Other members expressed concern for the impact of lane reduction on: emergency vehicles’ response times, traffic flow, and the increased dangers of mixing vehicles and bicycles.
The maximum added delay, according to the city, is 5 seconds and only during the evening peak. Emergency vehicles should have less delay because, y'know, the sirens and such [If instead someone proposed a congestion charge to make sure there was always room for emergency vehicles I somehow think concern for that would evaporate. And finally, the whole point of this is to reduce the mixing of bikes and cars.
Members also criticized aggressive bicyclist behavior and the perceived new city preference for bicycles over cars in this densely-populated area.
Why should people on bicycles be privileged? I don't ride a bicycle. I should be privileged. I always have been and that's been working out great for me so far.
Families can’t travel by bicycle.
On the subject of overwhelming opposition, 721 people signed an electronic petition in opposition to the road diet - in a city of 144,000. The petitioners are opposed to the 3rd option, the one the city says will have the most safety benefit.
They say a worsening traffic squeeze causes “dangerous cut-through traffic on secondary roads and neighborhood streets,” as well as “longer travel time and decreased mobility for residents.”
Again, 5 seconds - at worst. As for dangerous cut-through traffic, there's no proof that there will be added cut through traffic or that it will be dangerous. Where is this traffic going to divert off of Seminary on to? There are drivers who use Seminary and one of the N-S routes to cut through the area, but that's there already. If anything slowing down Seminary should push more of that traffic to Duke or King. There is simply no option for getting off seminary to get around that 5 second delay.
WABA has a petition of its own, and if you're an Alexandria resident in favor of safer streets for cyclists you should sign it.
"in this densely-populated area." they really said that? I've heard them saying "we need our cars, alternatives won't work because this is NOT urban, its not like the east side of the City" Schrodinger's inner suburb.
as for diversion, if this really was to slow traffic on Seminary, it would likely push traffic back on to the interstates.
Posted by: ACyclistInThePortCIty | May 29, 2019 at 10:48 AM
I also like the argument that the data shows that Seminary isn't that dangerous but we also can't trust any of the data about trip time.
Posted by: drumz | May 29, 2019 at 04:47 PM