Letter To The Editor On Seminary Road Changes In Alexandria

Lifelong Alexandria resident Teresa Baker Payne submitted this letter to the editor in response to the Seminary Road reconfiguration approved by City Council in September. To post your own opinion on a local topic, sign up for a Patch account or email the editor at Emily.Leayman@patch.com.

Dear Editor and Mayor Justin Wilson,

I woke up this morning with a slight twinge of empowerment. Last night I picked up my “Take Back Seminary Road” bumper sticker and it was already displayed on my back windshield for everyone to see. Oh, how I couldn’t wait to start driving my daily route through #justinstrafficjam at least with the twisted pleasure of voicing my public discontent.

This issue hits very close to home for me. In fact, it hits my childhood home directly with a bullseye. I was born at Alexandria Hospital and I grew up on Seminary Road since the age of 10. Yes, I guess you could say that I am a true local. My parents still reside there and we frequently gather at their home for family events and holidays. I also travel on Seminary Road daily to take my children to school between Braddock Road and St. Stephens Road.

I have always resided in the city of Alexandria and am a product of both its private and public schools. I walked down Seminary Road every day to Hammond Junior High School and the opposite way to TC Williams High School every day until I could drive.

Growing up in Alexandria, I know these neighborhoods extremely well, especially Seminary Ridge. My squad of neighborhood teenage girls would always find a way to end up at someone’s house during the summer and play flashlight tag, kick the can, drink slurpees, and watch Jaws in 3D on the tv set. We managed to do all of this by self-organizing without the aid of texting or DMs; imagine that.

I am completely disappointed and appalled with the current situation on Seminary Road and the new “Road Diet” or Road Anorexia and the lack of transparency by the City Council. Seminary Road is a major thoroughfare between Duke Street and the BRAC building. Of course, as you know, it also has several schools, the only hospital in the city, and a fire station. For the city council not to have listened to all 13 civic associations is shocking and unbelievable. I truly cannot believe that four people could impact the lives of so many citizens on a daily basis: Justin Wilson, Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, Canek Aguirre, and Del Pepper (who has been on city council for as long as I can remember). Your road diet has created more traffic, more carbon monoxide, and more aggravation for your citizens that pay way too much in taxes and, to add insult to injury, have to pay for all of this. We all have to go to work on a daily basis to pay for the 11 percent restaurant tax – the highest in the area, the increased water bills, and the increased property taxes, which may really be decreasing even if the tax assessments state otherwise.

Just yesterday, your city employees installed another “No Turn on Red” sign from Seminary Road to St. Stephens Road. Why not simply install cross walk signals that will delay stop lights when pedestrians are present? I have heard that another “No Turn on Red” sign will be installed from Seminary Road to Quaker Lane. Is that true? If so, that will just aggravate the already increasing congestion and lead to even more delays. All of this for a paltry handful of bikers that have been spotted on Seminary Road since these “improvements” have been made. Some of them simply keep riding up and down the street to try to increase their presence.

Mr. Mayor, we are educated citizens that live within our city limits. Stop the insanity! Why don’t you start listening to your constituents that got you elected. Oh yeah, they all live in Del Ray and Rosemont and do not travel this 1-mile stretch of road. Next up should be Mount Vernon Avenue. Try taking away all the commercial parking on that street which would actually make more sense since there is a clear destination to the metro rather than the bike lanes to nowhere! I have biked Mount Vernon Avenue to the metro and had to quickly get on the sidewalks when buses come by or I would have been squashed like a bug on a windshield. Mr. Mayor, start listening and stop trying to check your boxes to catapult you to the next political level.

Teresa Baker Payne
Member, Alexandria Residents Against the Seminary Road Diet