I read with dismay, but not surprise, your Nov. 3 article about increased vehicular traffic on King Street between T.C. Williams High School and the Masonic Temple (“Outrage over Traffic Calming”). I live just off that stretch of King Street, and although traffic has slowed, the “congestion” is only slightly increased, such that it takes me, at most, two minutes longer than before to pass T.C. Williams when I drive west to work during morning rush hour.
As a person who lives in the neighborhood, I feel this “delay” is far outweighed by the benefits of being able to bike safely to and from Old Town, which I do frequently, and to cross King Street with my dog on the way to Chinquapin Park without sprinting for our lives.
The worst traffic on King Street remains east of Janney’s Lane, between Highland Street and the King Street Metro Station. Unfortunately, I find myself contending with that congestion often when, after work, I travel by car to Old Town, bringing dinners to my mother. The traffic on that part of King Street is caused by an inevitable bottle-neck because that stretch can never be wider than one lane. No amount of traffic calming (or reversal of such) on King Street west of that point, can change that situation, except that it might cause a few very impatient people to decide not to commute through our neighborhoods at all.
Finally, I find the car-centric attitude of so many Alexandrians to be discouraging. I would like to see “traffic” — in the sense of vehicular congestion — viewed as part of the bigger picture that includes the various other means people use to get around in the neighborhood — as well as the right not to live next to a street where people routinely drive 50 miles an hour because the too-wide road, served, without justification, as a virtual superhighway.
Eliza Savage
Alexandria