In June, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) released their plan for travel alternatives during the extensive Yellow and Blue Line work that began last month. The plan in place includes new free shuttle routes and reduced Blue Line headways. The Virginia Railway Express has also been providing completely free service in September and October for trips to and from Alexandria. The City has also worked to supplement these options with free Capital Bike Share and expanded water taxi service.

Yesterday, we were dismayed to learn from WMATA that the first phase of work has been extended for another two weeks, with Alexandria's Metro Stations now scheduled to reopen (with only the Blue Line) on Sunday November 6th.

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.

To say that the City is disappointed in WMATA's management of this project would be an understatement. We have made specific requests of new oversight, new accountability and transparency from WMATA and will push the agency to complete this project as soon as possible, while addressing the significant financial impacts the City has borne as a result of WMATA's failures.

In May, representatives from WMATA attended our City Council meeting to discuss the ongoing planning for the upcoming shutdown. You can watch the discussion online or view the slides from the presentation.

After the May meeting, I wrote to WMATA Interim General Manager Andrew Off detailing the City's requests for mitigation, as well as reiterating the City's position that this major infrastructure work cannot occur unless WMATA has completed their work to bring the 7000 series cars back into service. Recent lapses by WMATA have only affirmed this position.

Three years ago, Alexandria's Metro Rail stations reopened after a difficult summer of platform improvement work cut the City off from the rest of the system. We spent part of a September 2019 City Council meeting looking back at the mitigations that we had put in place and how they had fared.

In 1979, an act of incredible philanthropy led to the creation of one of the most precious natural green spaces in our City. The Winkler Botanical Preserve, a 44.6 acre tract of land, in one of the most densely-developed portions of our City, was donated by Catherine Winkler Herman to allow future generations to enjoy this unique space.

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.

Over 15 years ago, the firm shed much of its real estate portfolio, but maintained the Preserve within a non-profit organization.

For decades, this Preserve has been managed by the non-profit, playing host to popular summer camps and youth programs.

Effective today, a new custodian will take the reins of this precious natural resource. The Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority (NOVA Parks) became the new owner of this tract and will work to maintain and program the space for generations to come.

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.

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.

The capital budget approved by the City Council in May contemplates over $157 million of new investment in our recreation and parks infrastructure. The approved budget includes large investments in athletic facilities, including:

To maximize the use of these facilities, the budget including funding for new athletic lighting at Francis Hammond Middle School, George Washington Middle School, Jefferson Houston K-8 School, Patrick Henry K-8 School and Eugene Simpson Stadium Park.

On Thursday evening, the City's Planning Commission will be holding a public hearing to consider approval of the lighting on all 5 sites. Public testimony is welcome. If the Planning Commission makes a recommendation this week, the City Council will take final action on all five applications at our Public Hearing on Saturday October 15th beginning at 9:30 AM. Public testimony is again welcome at that session as well.

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. 

The data collection that was performed for the Central Alexandria Traffic Study revealed that a relatively small number of residential streets were carrying inordinate amounts of "cut-through" traffic, mostly using those streets to access the Telegraph interchange with the Beltway. 

In response to input from the Central Alexandria Traffic Study, the City implemented a variety of mitigation efforts to reduce neighborhood cut-through and work to keep heavy volumes of traffic on the highways and arterial roads.

After work with civic associations, our staff proposed new mitigation efforts to reduce some neighborhood cut-through traffic.

The results of this first pilot were very positive:

This second phase will remain in place through the end of March and we will evaluate how traffic patterns are impacted by this change.

With this new pilot now in place, we want your input. Please complete our survey to let us know your experience as we work to try new things to reduce the impact of this cut-through traffic.

Early voting for our November election began last month. So far 28 voters have returned ballots by mail, 488 voters have voted in person, and an additional 8,260 voters have received ballots by mail but have not yet returned them.

On November 8th, Alexandria voters will only have one office on our ballots: election of our representative in the United States House of Representatives.

On Tuesday November 8th, all City polling places will be open from 6 AM until 7 PM for the General Election.

The sample ballot is now available for your review online.

Two years ago, Virginia introduced "no-excuse" early voting, so voters have three choices to vote this November:

Last month a driver was sentenced to three years in jail for hitting and killing an Alexandria pedestrian on a sidewalk on Glebe Road when his vehicle left the roadway.

The City has invested millions of taxpayer dollars to improve pedestrian safety throughout our community. Those resources have included improving pedestrian access to schools,   building and improving sidewalks, crosswalks, traffic calming efforts, bike lanes, new signalization, and more. 

Several years ago, we kicked-off a Vision Zero initiative for Alexandria. While this initiative will involve significant resources and planning, it simply means that we would design road spaces, traffic regulations and operations to eliminate fatalities and serious injuries. Five years ago, the Council approved our Vision Zero Action Plan, which specified the actions we would take to see this aggressive vision to reality.

For instance, the first phase of the King Street Complete Streets effort involved the removal of parking, narrowing of travel lanes, improved crosswalks, signage, new bike lanes, etc., to reduce speed and improve safety. The initial analysis showed that the project has reduced speed, reduced crashes and improved safety.

The second phase of the work on King Street was an even more dramatic overhaul of the corridor, including reductions of travel lanes, pedestrian islands, crosswalks, etc.  When the City Council and Traffic & Parking Board received the initial analysis of those changes, as with the first phase, crashes have been reduced and average speed has been reduced. 

On Seminary and Quaker, the City reduced speed limits to improve safety.  When that action was reviewed, it also indicated a reduction in speed and crashes.

Last month, the City's Traffic & Parking Board approved a request to reduce the speed limit on N. Beauregard and W. Braddock Road from 35 MPH to 25 MPH. The request also included reductions of the speed limit from 25 MPH to 15 MPH in the school zones on N. Beauregard, W. Braddock, N. Howard and Seminary Road.

On Seminary Road, the road was narrowed, safer crossings for pedestrians created and new areas for pedestrians and bikers created. Initial analysis showed similarly positive results. While the pandemic delayed the data collection and analysis, the City will release further analysis of the impact of that effort shortly.

We have also looked at signalization efforts that can improve safety. At a few problem intersections, the City created a "Leading Pedestrian Interval" to allow residents to get a head-start crossing before traffic can move. Our current year priorities include implementing these changes at numerous intersections around the City.

We have also explored the creation of additional "pedestrian scrambles" to create an "all pedestrian" phase at problematic intersections. 

We have HAWK (High Intensity Activated crossWalK) signals in place to ensure high visibility of pedestrians in high traffic corridors. A new one was recently installed on W. Braddock Road near Minnie Howard School.

Our Vision Zero Dashboard shows that while we have made progress, the data indicates the need for more work.

The research shows that speed is closely linked with the lethality of a pedestrian crash. There are now only a few streets remaining in the City with speed limits over 25 MPH. I suspect the Council will soon consider a consistent City-wide speed limit of 25 MPH.

Early next year, the City will be launching an automated speed enforcement program in 5 school zones to enforce speed limits in those areas.

Allowing right turns on red was pushed by the Federal Government during the 1970s as a response to the energy crisis.   Some communities in the country are banning right turns on red to improve pedestrian safety by reducing complexity at intersections. 

The ideal condition on our roads is to separate users by mode, particularly when there can be large disparities in speed. That means building new sidewalks and new lanes for bikes. Last month, the City Council unanimously green-lighted a new sidewalk project on the West End, part of our efforts to complete missing gaps in our sidewalk network.

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.

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.

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.

This increases of the fee over the past two years has allowed the City to quadrupled the planned investment in stormwater mitigation since 2020 and support a newly accelerated 10-year program of investments.

Our new "Flood Action Alexandria Projects Dashboard" allows resident to navigate the location and status of the projects funded by these resources.

While these funds will address many smaller "spot improvement" projects, this funding will allow the City to undertake 11 of the top priority storm sewer capacity projects over the next decade:

In addition to these locally-funded infrastructure initiatives, the City Council voted a year ago to allocate $5.8 million of our American Rescue Plan funding to address maintenance and investment in our Storm Sewers.

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.

We created the Ad Hoc Stormwater Utility and Flood Mitigation Advisory Group, a citizen group to provide advice to Council and our staff as we execute this aggressive investment schedule. 

Together, nearly a billion dollars is planned for water investments. This spending dwarfs planned investments in schools, transportation and other major priorities. Only a decade ago, planned investments in water infrastructure were less than 10% of this total, but addressing these challenges will require a sustained increase in that investment level of a long period of time.

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.

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.

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. 

After the adoption of the 2008 Master Plan, a community task force was assembled to provide some more details around the vision for each of the transit corridors. 

Transit Corridor C, now called the "West End Transitway" will be the next to come to reality. The West End Transitway has now been awarded over $101 million of State and Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) funds. The NVTA recently awarded an additional $5 million to bring this project to fruition.

The slower pace of redevelopment in the Beauregard corridor will necessitate multiple phases to implement this project. With funding now in place (although not until 2024-2025), work begins to plan the implementation. 

Transit Corridor B, the Duke Street Transitway, will be the final corridor implemented. Two years ago, the City received $75 million in regional funds from the NVTA to bring this new transit to reality.

Last month, the Duke Street Transitway Advisory Group, a group of residents advising next steps in this project, held their fifth meeting to provide input. We are now seeking your opinion through surveys and community engagement opportunities throughout this month.

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.

A decade later, our friends in Fairfax County are now planning ambitious transit connections from Fort Belvoir to the City border. This potential investment provides a unique opportunity for Alexandria and Fairfax County to explore creating a contiguous transit corridor that would go from Fort Belvoir all the way to the Pentagon. To facilitate this consideration, I have asked our staff to bring forward amendments that would end the existing prohibition.

On Wednesday evening City Council created a new Office of Climate Action, comprising two current City positions, three budgeted positions and two new positions.

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:

In February, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change again sounded the alarm. Their report gives the world very little time to take meaningful action to mitigate catastrophic impacts of rising temperatures.

Earlier this year, a new study has shown the impacts of climate change on accelerating sea-level rise, an impact that places our City in significant peril.

It was over two years ago that the City Council adopted the latest update of our Environmental Action Plan . This ambitious plan does not commit or appropriate money, but it does set the strategic direction to: 

The City released a comprehensive report of the accomplishments achieved during 2020, including reductions in GHG emissions, new programs to make commercial buildings more sustainable, transportation initiatives, new green building standards, expanded recycling, and more.

In April of last year, the City Council approved our new Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Readiness Strategy. Earlier last year, the Council approved the City's first Alternative Fuel Fleet Policy to accelerate the City's deployment of these vehicles.

DASH recently added its first electric buses to its fleet. They are now serving our City on scheduled routes.

In 2020, the Council unanimously approved our new Green Building Policy. This new policy reflects the collaboration of a Task Force that met for several months to arrive at this new direction.

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.

The City has again partnered with the Northern Virginia Regional Commission to bring back Solarize Alexandria. This program partners with residential property owners to conduct assessments on the feasibility of solar power installations.

Buildings account for 39% of total energy use, 68% of electricity consumption and 38% of all carbon dioxide emissions. When buildings are built efficiently, redevelopment can be a powerful force to reduce our energy demands and improve our environment. 

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. 

In his outgoing budget proposal presented in late 2021, former Governor Ralph Northam proposed using surplus state tax revenue to provide one-time $250 income-tax rebates to Virginia taxpayers.

These rebates are being issued this month to eligible taxpayers. To check the status of your rebate, the Virginia Department of Taxation has developed an online application.