Pedestrian hit-and-run closes section of King Street; fifth pedestrian incident Alexandria police have posted about this month

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A section of King Street was closed early Thursday after a pedestrian was struck in a hit-and-run, the Alexandria Police Department said. It is the fifth pedestrian-involved incident the department has posted about on its social media accounts this month.

APD posted on its official account at 2:39 a.m. that the 2200–2300 block of King Street was closed while officers investigated, and asked drivers to avoid the area.

As of publication, APD had not released the victim's age, sex, or condition, or a description of the vehicle or driver. The Alexandria Brief has asked the department for additional information about this incident.

Four earlier APD posts

In the three weeks before Thursday's closure, APD used its social media accounts to announce four other crashes involving pedestrians.

April 1. The department reported a vehicle-pedestrian crash that closed the intersection of Mill Road and Eisenhower Avenue. APD said officers were on scene investigating, and the intersection later reopened.
April 4. The intersection of Mt. Vernon Avenue and E. Braddock Road was closed after a pedestrian was struck by a vehicle, according to APD. Officers investigated at the scene, and the intersection reopened at about 5:46 p.m.
April 7. A crash involving a pedestrian shut down N. Van Dorn Street between Maris Avenue and Taney Avenue, including the intersection at Sanger Avenue, APD said. The department said the pedestrian was taken to a hospital. The road reopened at about 6:19 p.m.
April 20. A 62-year-old woman was struck and killed at about 5:26 p.m. at the intersection of N. Saint Asaph and Montgomery streets, APD said. The driver — a 46-year-old man in a black Chevrolet Suburban — remained at the scene and was cooperating with investigators, APD communications manager Tracy Walker told The Alexandria Brief. The department's Crash Reconstruction Unit is investigating, and the medical examiner is conducting an autopsy. APD has not said whether charges will be filed. The intersection reopened at approximately 10:30 p.m.

Of the five incidents posted this month, Thursday's is the only one the department has described on social media as a hit-and-run.

The Alexandria Brief has asked the department for additional details and for any comment on the pattern of pedestrian-involved incidents it has posted about this month. The five incidents described in this article reflect those APD announced publicly on social media — typically because they resulted in road closures or sustained police activity — and may not represent every pedestrian-involved crash in Alexandria during that period.

A separate crash on April 15

Between APD's April 7 and April 20 posts, a separate pedestrian crash drew a public response from city leaders. On the evening of April 15, an 11-year-old boy was struck by a vehicle just after 6 p.m. in the 5700 block of Sanger Avenue, near William Ramsay Elementary School, according to police radio dispatches. The driver stayed at the scene, and the boy's injuries were described as non-life-threatening. Mayor Alyia Gaskins addressed the crash in her daily video update to constituents the following day.

Vision Zero

The recent incidents come as the city continues to pursue its Vision Zero initiative, a program adopted by the City Council in December 2017 that sets a goal of eliminating traffic deaths and severe injuries on Alexandria streets by 2028, according to the city.

Vision Zero's infrastructure work — such as signal changes, speed management and intersection redesigns — applies only to city-maintained streets; state- and federally-owned roads within city limits, including I-395 and I-495, fall under Virginia Department of Transportation authority.

The city's Vision Zero Crash Dashboard recorded 863 crashes across all Alexandria roads in 2025 — the most recent year for which data is available — including four fatal crashes, 39 serious injuries, 321 minor injuries, 54 possible injuries, and 445 property-damage-only crashes. Of those, 615 occurred on city- or town-maintained streets, including two of the four fatal crashes. About 6 percent of city-street crashes in 2025 were coded as hit-and-runs. The dashboard does not yet include 2026 data.

Looking at pedestrian and bicyclist crashes specifically across all Alexandria roads, the dashboard has recorded 478 such crashes since Vision Zero was adopted in December 2017, including 19 fatal and 68 that caused serious injuries. Annual totals fell during 2020 through 2022 — a period of reduced travel during the COVID-19 pandemic — before rising again. The 64 recorded in 2024 were the most in any year since the program's adoption, and the dashboard had logged 60 in 2025 through late November.

Since Alexandria adopted Vision Zero in December 2017, the dashboard has recorded 29 fatal crashes on city-maintained streets through late November 2025, the most recent dashboard update. When state- and federally-owned roads within city limits are included, the total rises to 43. The city announced in February 2024 that it had ended 2023 with zero traffic fatalities, calling the result a milestone for its Vision Zero efforts. The dashboard has since recorded two fatal crashes on city streets in each of 2024 and 2025; citywide fatalities across all road ownerships totaled six in 2024 and four in 2025.

Monday's pedestrian death at N. Saint Asaph and Montgomery streets was on city-maintained roads and will be added to the dashboard when it is next updated. Two additional 2026 fatalities occurred within Alexandria's city limits on state- or federally-owned roads — a pedestrian killed in a hit-and-run on I-395 near the Duke Street exit on March 24, and a motorcyclist killed on I-495 on April 15 — both of which are being investigated by Virginia State Police.

The city lists several active Vision Zero projects that touch on pedestrian safety, including West End high-crash intersection audits, school-zone speed cameras, Mount Vernon Avenue North improvements, North Duke Street turn calming, corridor speed management, and the installation of leading pedestrian intervals and "No Turn on Red" restrictions at select intersections. Completed Vision Zero work includes a citywide pedestrian lighting improvements study, Duke Street / Route 1 high-crash intersection audits, intersection improvements at King Street, Callahan Drive and Russell Road — on the same corridor as Thursday's crash, east of the closure — and a neighborhood slow zone pilot.

Separately, the city this week began installing new adaptive traffic signal cabinets along Duke Street as part of its Smart Mobility Program. According to the city, the new system uses video and LiDAR-based detection to adjust signal timing in real time. Additional intersection upgrades are scheduled along the corridor in the coming months.