City staff presented three design concepts for a dedicated bicycle and pedestrian trail along North Beauregard Street, a 1.5-mile corridor from Fillmore Avenue to the Fairfax County line. The study builds on the Alexandria Mobility Plan and Alex West Small Area Plan. No votes were taken; public feedback is open until April 19, 2026.
By my colleagues Ryan Knight and Daniel Markham. Before we get started, I just want to run through a quick bit of housekeeping. We'll go through a presentation. I invite you to drop any questions you may have during the presentation into the QA chat function. Daniel and Ryan will be moderating that and answering when they can during the presentation and also consolidating questions to respond to at the end. At the end of the presentation, after we've gone through any questions we have received, we'll also open it up for QA. At that point, we'd ask if you could please raise your hand so that we can see if you have a question. I'll acknowledge you by the name listed on your Zoom name, and then unmute you so you can ask the question. So we're going to go ahead and get started since it is a little after seven. So once again, thank you so much for joining us. We're excited to give a brief overview of this project, which is a feasibility study for the Beauregard Trail. So during this presentation, we'll start with a project overview, including the project's goals and alignment with approved city plans and policies. We'll cover some existing conditions within the study area, go through some project analysis and design ideas, and then wrap up with ways to share your thoughts on the project and next steps. So the project location is North Beauregard Street, which is located in the western end of the City of Alexandria, starting in the northern end of the roadway at the intersection of Fillmore Avenue and North of Beauregard, and it extends southwesterly for about approximately one and a half miles to the city limits with Fairfax County near Lincolnia Road. So you can see it highlighted in blue on the screen here. The project only includes funding for the study and does not include design or construction at this point. The grant study builds upon recommendations in city plans and policies that have been previously vetted by the community and approved by City Council. These include the recommendation of protected bicycle facilities and the Alexandria Mobility Plan and the Alex West Small Area Plan, which was recently approved in late 2025. The extension of a multi-use trail also helps the city meet policy goals, such as providing dedicated spaces for pedestrians and cyclists, provision zero, and supports the city's environmental action plan by increasing access for sustainable modes of transportation. By building a dedicated trail along North Beauregard Street, the project delivers other city project goals, which are shaped by plans and policies, such as improving the mobility, safety, and access for all roadway users of all ages, abilities, and modes of travel, as identified in the Alexandria Mobility Plan. The Alex West plan identified increasing pedestrian and bicycle access to the neighborhood as a goal. And eliminating bicycle and pedestrian fatalities and severe injuries would be promoted through a dedicated trail space for pedestrians and cyclists, as identified in our Vision Zero goals. And finally, a trail offers easy to navigate space for bicycling and walking, hopefully increasing access to sustainable modes of transportation, as identified by the city's environmental policy goals. So, in terms of a timeline, the original vision for the Beauregard Trail can be traced back to 2021 or earlier when the Alexandria Mobility Plan and then the Alex West Small Area Plan in 2025. For the project design, we started the feasibility study in late 2025 and we'll proceed with identifying feasible concepts through this summer. Once we have a sense of the feasibility, the final timeline of the design and eventual construction is unknown, as we'll need to integrate the project into the department's work plans and identify potential funding. So now let's talk about the existing conditions in the corridor and the study area. Many of you are already familiar with North Beauregard Street as it's a popular vehicle throwfare in the city, and it's designed to move vehicles through the space. The roadway has four or more vehicle travelings along its length, creating a wide distance that can be difficult to cross. In addition, there are many steep slopes and hills along the length of the corridor. The sidewalks along North Beauregard Street are narrow, of approximately four feet in width, and frequently located close to the roadway with vehicles traveling at high speeds. The primary uses in the study area and reasons people tend to travel through the corridor are a mix of residential, schools, office, some retail, and a number of natural features. Garden style residential, such as those developed by Morgan Properties, cover much of the western side of the study area closer to Fairfax County, while higher density residential, such as such as Southern Towers is located on the eastern side of the corridor. Mark Center contains a mix of office users and connections to I-395 brings many daily commuters and vehicle traffic along the corridor. Academic uses such as John Adams, William Ramsey, and Ferdinand T. Day Elementary Schools are located within the communities they serve, close to the study area, and encourage students and parents to walk to the schools where possible and generate daily bus traffic during the school year, along with notable pedestrian volumes. Looking at bus transportation in the study area, many of the routes are focused more on the northeastern end of the corridor, with most of the bus traffic passing near Southern Towers and the Mark Center, while the 35 dash route runs along most of North Beauregard Street. Of note is the forthcoming West End Transitway, which will travel along Sanger Avenue and turn onto Beauregard Street with several stops within the project area. So this diagram shows a number of the various bicycle and pedestrian facilities along North Beauregard Street. These include some off-street trails, such as those in Holmes Run, and shared lane markings on portions of North Beauregard and Sanger Avenue. I would say the key takeaway from this diagram, though, is the entirety of North Beauregard Street is lacking any dedicated bicycle or newer pedestrian infrastructure to help knit together the surrounding and existing network of options. We've also pulled information on bicycle and pedestrian crashes within the past five years in the study area. And this information comes from the city's Vision Zero dashboard. What you're seeing here on this screen does not include any data on crashes with cars, which had many more incidents within the study area. Each of the dots on the screen represents a crash. And while there were a number of them, there were limited similarities between the incidents. However, we did identify a few commonalities, which included distracted drivers, poor lighting, and high vehicle speeds. Sadly, many of these crashes did occur within crosswalks where pedestrians should feel safer crossing the street, indicating opportunities to improve the roadway conditions and driver behaviors to create a safer community. And let's transition briefly to a little bit of traffic analysis within the corridor as well. So to help shape our understanding of existing roadway capacity and the potential design parameters for our trail, our team conducted a preliminary traffic analysis to understand existing volumes along North Beauregard Street.