HOW A QUAINT DC SUBURB GOT HIJACKED BY OUTSIDE SPECIAL INTERESTS
…and A Part-Time City Council
The late, great former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill famously said and wrote: All politics is local. And the citizens of Alexandria, Virginia, many of whom are distracted by the noisy hum of national politics, have been jolted awake — as if being dunked in a bathtub of ice water — with the realization their city has been hijacked by a generally oddball ideological agenda compounded by special interests who do not live, work or commute in this once-quaint DC suburb.
Alexandrians are now left scratching their heads and trying to assess the damage done by a mostly unsophisticated, freewheeling city council. Residents are trying to comprehend how a part-time city elected council could do so much tangible damage in such a short time. Sadly, it can do a fair amount.
A combination of several seemingly tone-deaf, part-time elected officials and unmanaged city growth over the past decade with rubber-stamped overdevelopment has led to frustrating traffic congestion and a negative impact to quality of life.
What has happened to Alexandria is akin to the domino effect that has resulted in climate change: a series of poor planning and short-sighted decisions over a relatively short period of time which has resulted in a “new normal” that will be impossible to reverse. The changes were subtle at first for Alexandrians — a few new high rises here, a few road reductions there, and voila!
But as a former resident and frequent visitor, the changes were drastically apparent on a recent visit to my old stomping grounds. The new congested reality of Alexandria was like a slap in the face. It felt so unfamiliar. It was like seeing a friend after many years at a high school reunion and he is almost unrecognizable. He’s an older, fatter, balder, less charming version of someone who looks faintly familiar. I had glimpses of recognition of the place I once call home, but the traffic congestion, newly constructed high rises, and fewer green spaces have changed this city into an uglier version of its former self.
The build-up of traffic on I-395 was my first sign that something had changed. As I inched off my regular exit from I-395 to Seminary Road, I found myself waiting. And waiting. And waiting.
I figured there was likely an accident and traffic was simply moving slowly, but then I realized something quite perplexing. My regular route leading into Old Town had been oddly altered to a two lane road from the previous four lane road, with large expansive medians and oddly-colored Kelly green bike lanes going both ways. I had plenty of time to marvel at this oddity since I sat in traffic for more than 20 minutes to go just a mile. The car lanes were like a parking lot while the new bike lanes sat completely empty. (Apparently the cycling community did not get the memo that Seminary Road was open for business.)
I relayed this oddity to a friend I was meeting for lunch and boy did I get an earful. There have been 10 and 20-story buildings popping up everywhere, schools bursting at the seams, parking nightmares due to overbuilding, sewage dumping into the Potomac after a rain, and nutty tax proposals like a tax on businesses and residents to promote businesses which (a) means the city’s own convention and visitors bureau and tourism board are not doing their jobs, and (b) the tax would raise the rents of the very businesses it claimed to be helping. Brilliant!
But a quick Google search amplified what my friend described to me as the “Seminary Road Diet.” Apparently, a well-run, sophisticated campaign by the likes of Lyft and Transurban (who has the $500 million contract on HOT lanes on I-395 and thus a financial interest in creating congestion near HOT lanes) had been behind this operation from the start.
These entities apparently financed everything, including carefully orchestrated grassroots campaigns and hefty donations to cycling-enthusiast groups who favored redesigning the traffic artery to single lanes both ways for “safety reasons.” And despite a majority community vote against this unpopular idea, the new plan sailed through with a 4–3 vote in the Alexandria City Council.
Despite opposition from every area civic group, including the City Council’s own Traffic and Parking Commission, Seminary Road completely converted from four to two lanes with permanent structures in less than two weeks.
This organized and orchestrated campaign by out-of-town interests took a page from the equally sophisticated out-of-town construction industry, which has greased the skids through the City Council so well that bigger and higher buildings are literally blocking out the sun in and around Alexandria. As in thousands of new apartments in less than a decade. Literally. Thousands.
Alexandria’s City Council, which is made up of essentially volunteers — many whom lack political sophistication and basic business experience — has now dramatically altered the lives of its citizens for the worse. And while I have no doubt they passionately love the city and have fine intentions, they are clearly out of their depth when it comes to decisions, priorities and planning. Worse, the individuals who made the decisions about the “Seminary Road Diet” don’t even represent the West End impacted by this disaster.
The lesson here? The City of Alexandria needs to reorganize into precincts or wards with local representatives to protect the interests of communities, not at-large representatives on its council. This will help ensure more democratic decisions are reached with more informed representative input. The only solution is to have a Council that represents ALL Alexandrians through local precincts and geographic residency requirements that ensure equal representation.
As a now-outsider looking in, I can’t understand how my former town let this happen. Alexandria’s leaders need to wake up, stop bowing to special interests and cross-town indifference, and immediately put smart planning into place before citizens become prisoners in their own neighborhoods, or worse yet, decide to leave Alexandria altogether, as I did.
