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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Alexandria's Traffic and Parking Board voted Monday night to remove 20 on-street parking spaces along Russell Road near Naomi Brooks Elementary School, rejecting a scaled-back city staff recommendation that would have removed four spaces and added two.
The 5-2 vote came after nearly two hours on the item, including 14 public speakers, and reversed the direction city staff had taken after a spring engagement period in which teachers and residents raised concerns about parking near the school.
The board also adopted a friendly amendment directing staff to return with proposals for additional on-street parking solutions for Alexandria City Public Schools employees at Brooks, which has no staff parking lot.
What staff recommended
City staff came to the board recommending a revised version of Concept 1, the more conservative of two designs presented publicly in May. It called for:
- Removal of one space on the 800 block of Russell Road
- Addition of two spaces on the 600 block
- Removal of one space on the 500 block
- Removal of two spaces on the 400 block
That amounted to four spaces removed and two added — a net loss of two on the corridor.
Complete Streets Coordinator Silas Sullivan told the board that staff arrived at the revised concept after meeting with the Rosemont Civic Association's transportation committee on June 8, Brooks faculty and staff on June 15, and the Brooks PTA on July 8. The two added spaces on the 600 block, directly across from the school, were identified during that process specifically to protect parking for teachers.
Sullivan said a spring 2026 study found the prevailing speed on the corridor was 25 mph, with a top recorded speed between 45 and 49 mph, and that parking occupancy peaked at 34% during morning drop-off, averaging 15% to 20% at other times. He noted that three-hour parking restrictions on the southern end of the corridor limit where Brooks staff can actually park.
What the board approved
Immediately after public comment closed, board member Dane Lauritzen asked Sullivan what a full Concept 2 would require. Twenty parking spaces, he answered, and Lauritzen asked him to break it out by block the way Concept 1's removals were printed in the docket.
Sullivan pulled up the concept and read them off: four spaces on the 300 block of Russell Road, seven on the 400 block, six on the 500 block, one on the 700 block and three on the 800 block. Lauritzen added it up aloud — 21. Sullivan corrected himself: six on the 400 block, not seven.
Lauritzen then moved to remove exactly those spaces — four on the 300 block, six on the 400, six on the 500, one on the 700 and three on the 800. That comes to 20, with none added back.
Concept 2, the option staff had set aside, proposed median refuge islands at West Masonic View Avenue, West Walnut Street and West Maple Street in addition to painted curb extensions. The city's interactive concept map put its parking impact at 19.5 spaces, removed in ones and twos at individual intersections rather than in blocks.
Lauritzen said they had seen street safety efforts fall short elsewhere by not going far enough, citing a project near Washington-Liberty High School in Arlington, and pointed to the corridor's 34% peak parking occupancy. They said the city should work with the school and teachers to accommodate employees who drive.
Board Chair Annie Ebbers, participating remotely, seconded the motion. Board member Kursten Phelps offered the friendly amendment on ACPS staff parking, which Ebbers also seconded.
The motion passed 5-2, with board members Mark Stout and Rosemary Spano voting against.
During the discussion, Lauritzen praised T&ES staff for their engineering work, including on the Braddock Road project, and noted the department's director rarely amends what the board sends up. But they said their critique of the night was that staff should lay out the tradeoffs openly and bring the board a full range of options rather than a narrowed recommendation, leaving the board to set priorities.
Why the vote covered only parking
The board's authority over the project is narrow. City code directs it to consider matters concerning substantial changes to traffic and on-street parking regulations, and to prioritize the safety of all users when making recommendations. Its role on parking is advisory: it recommends, and the director of Transportation and Environmental Services decides. Every staff recommendation in Monday's docket was framed that way.
The design itself — whether the corridor gets painted curb extensions, median refuge islands or both — rests with T&ES, not the board. That would have been true regardless of which concept the board backed. Under staff's recommendation, the vote would likewise have covered only the parking changes.
Monday's motion listed parking removals and referenced no design element by name. But the two are linked in practice: staff told the board that median refuge islands require roughly 20 spaces because vehicles need room to move around the islands, while painted curb extensions alone require about four. The board's action authorizes the amount of parking removal the island design would need, without directing that the islands be built.
What speakers said
Six people spoke in person and eight more online during a public hearing that ran from 8:40 to 9:12 p.m. Of the 14, 11 backed Concept 2, two supported the revised Concept 1 staff had recommended, and one criticized Concept 1 without endorsing an alternative.
Three speakers, from differing perspectives, urged the board not to add the two spaces on the 600 block.
A Rosemont parent who walks and bikes the corridor daily with her daughter, said she was disappointed Concept 2 was eliminated before reaching the board. She argued the project had been framed as a tradeoff between pedestrian safety and teacher parking. "This compromise just feels like it's based kind of on a false binary," she said, suggesting the city instead explore residential parking stickers or a dedicated teacher parking zone. She also urged the board not to add the two spaces on the 600 block, saying it would worsen crowding near the bus zone.
A resident of West Oak Street, across from the school, called Concept 1 a slight safety improvement but woefully insufficient, citing a 2025 VDOT average daily traffic count of 8,500 vehicles. He noted Brooks lacks a semicircular bus driveway, which he said forces buses to stop on Russell Road and block sightlines, and argued the city should fund a driveway instead.
A resident of Russell Road asked where exactly the proposed new spaces would sit relative to driveways, citing visibility concerns, and said he was relieved the speed cushions would remain. He called the staff compromise "pretty good," said he did not think his neighbors should lose parking, and raised a safety objection to a shortened median island — that children might end up standing in an unprotected part of the roadway.
One of the two speakers backing the staff recommendation, a longtime resident who raised her children on West Chapman Street, disputed the city's occupancy figures. She said the stretch between West Masonic View Avenue and West Walnut Street reaches 80% to 90% occupancy at drop-off and pickup. She supported adding the two spaces on the 600 block, noting that only two school buses serve Brooks and that cars park illegally in that spot regularly, and argued that removing more parking would leave families crossing Russell Road from farther away.
Several speakers backing Concept 2 urged the city to solve teacher parking separately, through residential parking permits for staff, a dedicated teacher zone or changes to the permit district. An ACPS teacher who spoke online supported Concept 2 while saying Brooks is confusing to park at.
Speed cushions staying
One question that had run through the written comments was resolved during the presentation. Sullivan said the speed cushions on Russell Road are not being removed, and that staff may reposition them so they pair better with the painted curb extensions. Earlier project materials had implied the cushions could be replaced by the new treatments.
Sullivan also told the board that Russell Road's geometry is too narrow to accommodate full median refuge islands. The islands would have to be cut short before the crosswalk, meaning pedestrians would not have a protected center refuge of the kind found on Seminary Road or King Street.
What comes next
The board's action is a recommendation, not a final decision. Under city code, the director of Transportation and Environmental Services administers changes to on-street parking and must consider the board's recommendation. If the board's recommendation does not fully support the action the director intends to take, the code requires the director to notify the board in writing of the decision and the reasoning behind it, and to make that explanation available to the public.
Because the board recommended a substantially larger parking removal than staff proposed, that provision is now in play. If T&ES proceeds with its own recommendation instead, the department would have to explain itself in writing, publicly.
The decision can also be appealed. City code allows a traffic control established by the director and reviewed by the board at a public hearing to be appealed to City Council by a group submitting a petition signed by at least 25 city property owners or residents. An appeal must be filed with the clerk of City Council within 15 days of the board's recommendation to the director, or of the director's notice of alternative action, which would place the deadline in mid-August. Council would then hold a public hearing and could retain, remove or change the measure.
That is the path the Braddock Road redesign followed earlier this year, when a divided council upheld the board's decision after an 11-hour hearing in May.
Russell Road is scheduled to be repaved in spring 2027, and the Safe Routes to School improvements are planned to be installed as part of that work under the city's 2014 Complete Streets policy.
Staff will also return to the board with options for ACPS employee parking under Monday's amendment. No timeline was set.
Additional coverage
Ryan Belmore
Ryan Belmore
