The Council Connection
your connection to City Council by Mayor Justin M. Wilson
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Metro Rail Station Closure |
For most of September, the Metro Rail stations that serve Alexandria have again been cut off from the rest of the system.
The first phase of this shutdown is one that we expected and eagerly anticipated. In order to connect the newly-constructed Potomac Yard Metro Station, rail service south of the National Airport station was intended to be shutdown for 6 weeks from September 10th until October 22nd.
The second impact was not anticipated. The rehabilitation of the Yellow Line bridge and the adjacent tunnels, will require a shutdown of the bridge for 8 months, which also began on September 10th.
To make matters even more frustrating, WMATA has also announced an additional delay, of indeterminate length, for the planned opening of the Potomac Yard Metro. While the opening had been scheduled for late November (itself a significantly delayed date), it has now been pushed into 2023.
These closures have again cut Alexandria off from the rest of the system and they are significantly impacting Alexandria transit riders at a time when the City and its regional partners have been working to bring our residents back to transit.
It was a challenging period for our City, its residents, our visitors, and our businesses and their employees.
With a year of planning and regional collaboration, we were able to throw nearly everything we had at the shutdown.
While riders settled into new, slower routines, there were still challenges that impacted our City. The shuttle buses had issues with capacity and traffic flow. Some Metro Bus and DASH routes had similar problems as well. Traffic impacts exacerbated existing congestion. Some businesses saw reductions in revenue.
Fortunately, we know what works. In 2019, the City worked closely with WMATA, DASH and other regional partners to ensure that the shutdown did not become a disaster for our residents and our businesses.
The work to restore Metro back to the level required to support this region continues. In the short-term, additional sacrifice will be required. As a regular Metro rider myself, I know the service challenges first-hand.
With new leadership and major infrastructure investment, I am optimistic that these efforts will result in a more reliable system for Alexandria and the entire region. It is essential that this region have a credible transit system that can serve the needs of our community.
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Winkler Botanical Preserve |
Ms. Herman was the widow and successor to Mark Winkler, the leader of a family-owned real estate firm that developed and managed numerous properties across the region, including Mark Center on the City's West End.
For decades, this Preserve has been managed by the non-profit, playing host to popular summer camps and youth programs.
With this transfer, the Winkler Organization has provided NOVA Parks with $1 million for capital investments in this new regional park, $3 million for an operating endowment, and an additional $1 million was provided to the City of Alexandria to advance community engagement and learning in the park for our residents.
This transfer is a big win for Alexandria as NOVA Parks will work to bring more residents to this oasis in our City.
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Our parks and open spaces are significant contributors to quality of life, particularly in an urban community like Alexandria. As the pandemic ravaged our City, our open spaces were a refuge, well-loved and utilized. As we eased back into "normal," our children returned to athletic fields around our City, even before most other venues.
Yet, the reality that exists in our City today is that we lack the athletic facilities to fully meet the needs of our youth, and hardly begin to address adult recreation needs. Our most recent needs assessment clearly identifies these gaps, and decades of underfunded plans have exacerbated these challenges.
In the face of significant capital needs for schools, sewers, public buildings and transportation, providing resources for significant investment in our parks and recreation infrastructure has not been able to rise to the top of our list of priorities. This must change.
- $22M for field improvements (including synthetic turf replacement at Witter; turf renovations at Stevenson & Four Mile Run; as well as a large-scale renovation of the diamond fields at Simpson).
- $17.3M for field improvements at Four Mile Run Park
- $2.6M to build a new synthetic field at Patrick Henry, once the old school is demolished
I look forward to advancing efforts to improve our recreation capacity, to promote our quality of life and the health of our community.
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Reducing Cut-Through Traffic |
Last fall, the City Council finalized the recent update of our Alexandria Mobility Plan. During the outreach phase of that update, one of the most consistent areas of input we received were concerns about the impacts of congestion on quality of life.
Specifically:
- Of the vehicles coming from Seminary Road and Quaker Lane, roughly half use Quaker Lane to access the Telegraph Road ramp and half use local streets, namely Cambridge Road, Yale Drive and West Taylor Run Parkway.
- Of the vehicles coming from Seminary Road, 16% use Jordan Street (5%) or Fort Williams Parkway (11%). Roughly 35% use Quaker Lane and about half use local streets that are east of Quaker Lane.
- Of the vehicles coming from King Street, about 85% use West Taylor Run Parkway with most of the rest using Cambridge Road (13%).
As traffic volumes have returned in the wake of the pandemic, it has been clear that more is necessary.
At the beginning of the year, the first pilot was implemented and remained in place through April. This effort changed light timings on Quaker and Duke, as well as on side streets, to focus traffic volumes on the arterial roads.
- Overall volume on the Telegraph Road ramp was down by 14%
- Travel times for all routes were faster than before, but were about 35% faster using Quaker Lane and 20% faster on West Taylor Run
- Cut through traffic on Quaker Lane increased by 23%
- Cut through traffic on West Taylor Run and Cambridge Road decreased by 47% and 73%, respectively.
- Cut through traffic on Yale Drive, with the new “no left turn” restriction in place, decreased by 96%, from 706 vehicles in the peak to 31
- Cut through traffic on Fort Williams Parkway decreased substantially, by 81%, from 171 vehicles to 32
Last month, the City implemented the second pilot. This pilot has brought back the light timings from Phase 1, but also limited access from West Taylor Run Parkway to Telegraph Road, along with unimpeded ramp traffic on the Telegraph ramp.
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Each of these tragic incidents change the lives of the victims and their families in dramatic ways. But for each tragedy, there are also countless close calls and near misses that don't get reported.
In Alexandria, we are fortunate to have pedestrian scale, walkable neighborhoods with urban amenities throughout our City. Yet if residents do not feel they can safely traverse the streets of our City, then all the urban amenities are for naught.
Yet there are still areas of our City where sidewalks are non-existent or unusable, intersections are unsafe and unsafe driving is rampant. We must improve the safety of our streets for all users. Doing so requires changing the behavior of all users of our roads.
My view is that in order to significantly improve pedestrian safety in our City, we will have to be willing to make trade-offs in the pursuit of safety. The data show that the changes that will most significantly improve safety are also the most controversial in our community.
We have also explored the creation of additional "pedestrian scrambles" to create an "all pedestrian" phase at problematic intersections.
I do believe there is more we can do.
Alexandrians should be able to use our streets safely. We will have to take ourselves out of our comfort zone to make that happen. Ultimately, these efforts will not only provide mobility options for our residents, help achieve climate initiatives, but also save lives.
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Flood Projects Proceeding |
As the remnants of Hurricane Ian continue to cause damage on the eastern seaboard, we again witness the devastation that can be wrought by the impact of heavy rain events. This year, our nation has seen severe flooding in Buchanan County, Virginia, Eastern Kentucky and Puerto Rico.
These examples add urgency to the necessity that communities like ours must plan and implement climate-resilient infrastructure to protect the lives and livelihood of our residents.
For us here in Alexandria, our residents have endured 5 storm events in the past 3 years (July 8, 2019, July 23, 2020, September 10, 2020, August 15, 2021 and September 16, 2021) where the intensity and duration of the rain has far-exceeded the design capacity of our storm sewers, resulting in devastating flooding.
Over the last few years particularly, the City Council has worked to accelerate efforts to address chronic flooding issues, this time due to more frequent and more intense rain events. These storms are causing our residents and businesses to suffer significant financial loss due to damage from flooding and sanitary sewer backflow.
Addressing this challenge requires immediate and sustained action in the following areas:
- Infrastructure Investment and Maintenance
- Financial and Technical Assistance to Residents
- Development Policy Reform
Earlier this year, the City Council unanimously adopted an ordinance to again increase our Stormwater Utility Fee, to further increase the resources available for investments in our storm sewer infrastructure. This increase will mean a condo owner will pay $82.32 annually, a townhouse owner $123.48 annually, a small single-family homeowner $294 annually and a large single-family homeowner $490.98 annually.
The Stormwater Utility Fee revenue, paid by all property owners in the City (including non-taxable properties), will allow for an acceleration of major capacity projects and "spot improvements," an increase in channel maintenance, new "state-of-good repair" investments, property owner grants and new staffing in support of these projects and the system.
Recently enacted state legislation, sponsored by Senator Adam Ebbin at the City's request, gives the City the flexibility to use these resources to address all of the challenges facing our residents.
The City launched our "Flood Mitigation Pilot Grant Program." This new program has provided over $558,000 in matching reimbursement grants to property owners making flood resiliency improvements. This is one of the components of our comprehensive approach to addressing the flooding that has impacted our community for decades.
The investments required in our Sanitary Sewer system are funded by maintenance fees paid by existing customers (on the Alexandria Renew Enterprises bills) and by connection fees paid by developers.
In 2016, the City conducted a comprehensive Storm Sewer Capacity Analysis. This exhaustive study looked at each of the City's eight watersheds (Backlick Run, Cameron Run, Four Mile Run, Holmes Run, Hooff's Run, Holmes Run, Potomac River, Strawberry Run and Taylor Run) and identified problem areas where current capacity does not meet our 10-year storm design standard.
The study identified 90 separate deficiencies in the system, and estimated $61 million of construction costs required to address those deficiencies (construction costs are approximately half of expected budget costs). Over half of these deficiencies are concentrated in the Hooff's Run and Four Mile Run watersheds. The reports of flooding from our residents during these most recent events align closely to these deficiencies. It is that study that has informed the list of priority capacity projects listed earlier.
For development, whether large-scale, mixed-use development or a small residential addition, Alexandria's stringent stormwater requirements stipulate that conditions after development to be the same and oftentimes better than they were. As a consequence, the flooding we have experienced in the City is typically in established neighborhoods, areas of our City where we have not seen new development (aside from infill) in decades. Yet, there may be options to further strengthen these existing requirements. We have sought additional authority from the General Assembly for these expanded requirements.
A climate-resilient City requires investments and potentially new policies to ensure that residents of our City do not suffer devastating damage with such frequency.
Putting in place the infrastructure that can support a changing climate will be a significant undertaking for our community. It will involve a large commitment of new resources and possibly private property impacts. I am pleased that the City has made these new investments. Now we must explore every option to accelerate this work.
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We are advancing the implementation of resident-driven transit service designed to make it easier to get around our City. We want your opinion to inform this process.
Nearly 15 years ago, the City adopted its latest Transportation Master Plan. At the time, the plan was a significant transition in that it shifted from a plan focused on roads and vehicle traffic, to a plan that prioritized transit.
One of the most significant changes that came from the 2008 Master Plan was the designation of three transit corridors for high-capacity transit. The three corridors are:
- Transit Corridor A, which was nominally north to south on Route 1 on the east end of the City
- Transit Corridor B, which was intended as east to west on Duke Street
- Transit Corridor C, which was north to south on the west end of the City using Van Dorn and Beauregard
Fortunately, as these transit corridors come to reality, Alexandria's efforts are not happening in a vacuum. Our neighboring jurisdictions are also working to advance dedicated transit within their borders and beyond. Metroway was launched in partnership with Arlington County, to bring together a rapidly-growing corridor. When this occurred, Alexandria specifically precluded connectivity to the south, ending Metroway at Braddock Road Metro.
High capacity transit provides our residents with alternatives to congestion and delay. I am optimistic as we work to bring these projects to reality.
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In creating this office, the City Council also allocated $1.85 million of funding that was set aside for climate initiatives when we approved the FY 2023 budget back in May. These new resource will now fund specific initiatives designed to advance sustainability initiatives in our community. The funded initiatives will be in:
- Incentives
- Environmental Justice
- Education, capacity building and outreach
- Disclosure, monitoring, and recognition
- Demonstration
- Policies, procedures and advocacy
Here in Alexandria, we have already seen the dire impacts of a warming planet, as flooding and other storm damage gives us a preview of the decades to come. The geopolitical events of the past few days remind us of the non-environmental rationales for de-emphasizing fossil-fuel energy.
While the Federal government was largely disengaged from international efforts to address climate change, that is now changing. With or without Federal leadership, Alexandria is continuing to take meaningful climate action.
- Reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
- Expand Open Space
- Reduce water pollution
- Reduce vehicle miles traveled
- Reduce ozone
To be successful, this work necessarily involves the public and private sector and will ultimately require a state government fully committed to the cause.
While the Green Building Policy will ensure that new development is built in a sustainable manner, to make progress, we must address existing structures.
Two years ago, the City Council voted 5-2 to create a C-PACE program in Alexandria. A C-PACE program will allow commercial property owners to make improvements to reduce energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and sustainability, financed by repayments collected as part of the property's real estate tax payment.
Led by an incredibly motivated and knowledgeable group of residents, the City vaulted to the lead among local governments by adopting the Eco-City Charter over a decade ago. The charter defined a comprehensive vision for our City to improve environmental sustainability.
The Eco-City Charter then led the City to adopt the Environmental Action Plan. The plan laid out specific actions the City should undertake. It detailed how we should measure success and it began to define the next phase of our Eco-City evolution.
Constrained budgets make it more challenging for our City to continue its leadership in sustainability practices, but we can and should work to lead the region in this policy area. These efforts are critical given recent Federal policy changes, but are also good for our economy and our quality of life. I look forward to working to see them to reality.
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That proposal remained in the budget that was approved by the General Assembly during their 2022 session, and ultimately approved by Governor Glenn Youngkin,
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Paid for by Wilson For Mayor | www.justin.net |
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