Convenience versus Safety: Alexandria's Recurring Choice

If you were asked to choose between guarding someone's personal convenience and protecting someone else's personal safety, which would you pick? If you think the latter choice is the obvious one, have you ever sped through a school zone? 

Let's assume that was a momentary lapse (plus a failure to notice a nearby speed camera) and try something harder. Have you ever called for speed tables to be installed on a main road, like King Street or Russell Road? If so, you probably thought slower, calmer traffic would be safer for everyone. You would be correct, except that you didn't think about all the ambulances that use King and other main streets for their runs to the hospital. A few years ago the Alexandria Fire Department took members of the Alexandria Traffic & Parking Board on a ride-along to simulate what happens when medics try to stick needles and so forth into a patient just as they hit a speed table. It's not pretty, and there's really no way to design these so that an ambulance won't get thoroughly jarred.

Granted, that's an easy choice, once you’re informed of the consequences. But how would you react if we started talking about on-street parking? Suppose the City wanted to install a bike lane on your street, but the only way they can do it is if they remove a parking lane. Assume that you have off-street parking and your street is a busy road, with narrow sidewalks right up next to the curb, so that there's no buffer between a mom pushing a stroller and speeding drivers or Metrobuses. Would you be willing to sacrifice your parking lane to protect that mother and child with the buffer that a bike lane offers, or would you demand that your extra parking be maintained?

Let's up the ante. The Alexandria City Attorney's office says that, under City Code, delivery vehicles can temporarily block bike lanes for loading and unloading, as can parents loading up the minivan for soccer practice. Moving vans can also block them with a temporary permit. Assume that the City did a parking count showing that of the 30+ spaces in that parking lane, only 3 were ever used on average with 6 spaces used at the most. In other words, your only inconvenience in this scenario is that you can't leave a car on the street in front of your house for days, which you weren't doing, anyway, based on a scientific parking count. What is your choice: support the installation of bike lanes or insist on keeping the parking lane? Do you protect the safety of your fellow Alexandrians or protect your personal convenience?

Perhaps your reasoning for keeping this parking lane is the notion that your inability to park in taxpayer-funded, City-owned right-of-way would result in a decrease in your home value. Do you know of any examples of this happening? Again, remember that you have off street parking available. Did you know that multiple studies exist that conclusively show that making a neighborhood more walkable INCREASES home values?

This scenario isn't hypothetical. It's sadly quite real, and involves a short section of King Street west of Old Town. In a very real sense, the debate, which will come to a head on Wednesday, October 30th at a public meeting at Maury Elementary, will determine whether this City will cater to the majority who must commute each day, or to the minority that does not need to risk walking down to King Street-Old Town Metro on a narrow sidewalk smack next to a busy road (or bike there, for that matter). 

There are those in this City who want all decisions to be win-win. With moral choices, that's seldom possible. The best we can manage is to ensure that a heavy burden is not placed on those who are the most vulnerable, such as those who walk or bike to public transit. The best we can manage is to make sure we choose public safety over individual convenience.