King Street Pedestrian Zone could move forward this fall

Alexandria city staff said an expansion of the King Street Pedestrian Zone to the 200 block is feasible and could move forward this fall.

Hillary Orr, deputy director of Transportation Planning and Mobility, said the city worked with the fire department, police department, city attorney and traffic operations to review the proposal.

“We do believe it is feasible to have an additional block closed to vehicular traffic as a pilot on the 200 block,” Orr said.

Some businesses on the block expressed mixed feelings about the pedestrian zone expansion and the steeper elevation could make the 200 block tricker to adapt. The King Street Pedestrian Zone has been immensely popular so far, regularly populated with pedestrian traffic, though ALXnow poll respondents were mixed about expanding onto the 200 block.

The proposal could go to the Traffic and Parking Board later this month, returning to the City Council for an ordinance about the proposal on November 12 and 18.

City Council member Sarah Bagley said that while the city is looking at moving on to the 200 block for the Pedestrian Zone, she doesn’t want to neglect improvements to the 100 and unit blocks.

“When ya’ll come back with this, can you also provide any update on continuing or completed work on the 100 block and unit block,” Bagley said. “I think we weren’t totally done yet, so it might be nice for people to understand what we’re proposing, what they already see and experience, and what’s left to do down there.”