City Seeks Community Involvement in Massive Duke St. Overhaul
ALEXANDRIA, VA – On Monday, June 9, the Patrick Henry Recreation Center saw a surge of community engagement as the City of Alexandria hosted the Kick-Off Meeting and Community Open House for the Duke Street Land Use Plan, setting the tone for the street’s redesign to be implemented over the next couple years.
The plan is focused on the Duke St. corridor (which stretches from the Masonic Temple to Van Dorn St.), and intends to redesign it according to community wants and needs. The city intends on exploring “topics [such as] land use, environment and climate, equity, mobility and connectivity, pedestrian safety and accessibility, parks and open space, and housing affordability,” according to the project website.
In a survey given during the Open House, participants identified Mobility and Safety as the most important topic in the plan, followed by Affordable Housing. Many people emphasized walkability and bicycle accessibility, especially to grocery stores and other essential needs, as big issues in the corridor, along with a lack of trees and benches on the sidewalks. Others complained about the dangerous traffic along Duke St, describing feeling “landlocked” in to their neighborhoods by the hard-to-cross avenue.
One participant lamented the crazy traffic on Duke eastbound just before Telegraph Road during afternoon rush hour, as hundreds of people—many of them from Maryland—all try to get to I-495 from Alexandria.
“There has to be another connector that goes to Eisenhower and that goes to the freeway,” she stated before receiving tremendous applause.
“I wish that bus service was more frequent on weekends,” one local activist said. “I also wish that it was a little bit better for walking throughout the whole corridor.”
One long-time resident voiced concerns over potential rent increases associated with new development. “I hope there will be change, but there will not be displacement of the people who live on Duke St. I hope it does not get gentrified and people are forced to leave the area,” she expressed.
Jeff Farner, Alexandria’s Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Zoning, loves the idea of “greening” the corridor. “There are big segments of the corridor that need trees,” he says. Farner explains how trees help separate pedestrians from cars going 40 miles per hour, provide much-needed shade during the summer and help create a neighborhood’s sense of place.
Residents talked about these issues as well as many others, giving the urban planners a huge web of factors to consider when designing Duke St. or any other urban area. “The fun thing about being a planner is that you’re thinking about everything all at once,” one urban planner says.
From road safety to small businesses to tree canopy and shade, “there is no way to plan without considering it all.”
If you have anything you want to say to the planners, it is not too late to get involved. The city will host many more town halls and pop-ups at various locations until June 25. If you don’t feel like coming to a meeting or talking in person, you can email Project Lead Christian Brandt at [email protected], call him at (703)-746-3859, or chat with the team on WhatsApp.
Since the beginning of Duke St. in 1749, many people have made many decisions and created many plans for the avenue. Every one of them is still playing out, right now, right in front of us. Duke St.’s width in Old Town, for example, defines many aspects of traffic today. In the words of a former city manager, “we are inheriting every good and bad decision made in the past 250 years—some of them good, some of them not so good.”
Every tree along Duke Street, every bench, and every touch of beauty in the landscape exists because an urban planner once envisioned a better Alexandria. These individuals invested time and care, shaping a future they could only imagine—hoping their ideas would take root and flourish for generations of Alexandrians to come.
“Someone planted these trees for us,” Farner emphasizes. “Someone made a decision, 20 years ago, that we’re gonna plant a tree, build a park, or something that we may or may not be able to benefit from.”
Today, as we design a Duke St. for tomorrow, we must put ourselves in the shoes of Alexandrians ten, twenty, a hundred years down the line, and create the best Duke St. possible.
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Safety should also be taken into consideration for pedestrians on the sidewalks who have to dodge bikers, electric scooters,etc. The planning that goes into giving these vehicles lanes on the streets isn’t well used. They come on the sidewalks and cause accidents.
You should tell that to the city! Ways to get in touch are listed in the article.