The Alexandria City High School PTSA newsletter that landed in family inboxes on June 8 carried a letter from PreeAnn Johnson, the acting administrator at the Minnie Howard campus, warning that a city street study would create dangerous congestion and slow emergency response near the school. The letter read like a fresh objection to a fresh proposal. It wasn't. Johnson had originally written it months earlier about a different stretch of Braddock Road entirely, the segment near the Metro station more than a mile away, and asked that it run again to register opposition to "all phases" of what the newsletter treated as a single city plan.
It isn't a single plan. Two separate city projects share the Braddock Road name, and confusing them means missing the one where public comment still changes anything.
That confusion matters most if you live in North Ridge, especially the Braddock Heights pocket tucked between Russell Road, Braddock Road, and Quaker Lane. Both projects touch a street that already forms one of your neighborhood's boundaries. One approaches from the east, past Russell Road toward the Metro. The other runs along the south side, right where Quaker Lane meets W. Braddock Road near the Minnie Howard campus. Neither is optional background noise if you drive, walk, or bike out of the neighborhood in either direction.
Two names, two files, two clocks
The project near the Metro is officially the Braddock Road Trail Access and Corridor Improvements Project, covering the 0.8-mile stretch between Russell Road and West Street in the Rosemont and Del Ray area, just east of where North Ridge ends. It went through a six-hour Traffic and Parking Board hearing on February 23, 2026 and passed unanimously. Four residents and two churches appealed, which sent it to an 11-hour City Council hearing on May 16 where a divided council upheld it 4-3. Mayor Alyia Gaskins, Vice Mayor Sarah Bagley, and Council Members Canek Aguirre and Sandy Marks voted to affirm it. John Taylor Chapman, Jacinta Greene, and Abdel-Rahman Elnoubi voted against. That decision is final. The project has moved into detailed design, with construction and the parking removal expected in 2028.
The project near the high schools has a longer, more technical name: the W. Braddock Road Corridor and N. Howard Street Access and Safety Improvements Study. It covers roughly 1.5 miles of W. Braddock Road between N. Van Dorn Street and Crest Street, plus N. Howard Street between Seminary Road and W. Braddock Road, with a limited look at the King Street, N. Quaker Lane, and Braddock Road intersection. Nothing here has been decided. The city held a June 4 open house at the Minnie Howard campus, kept a feedback survey open through July 3, and has been targeting a preferred design by this past summer. As of this writing that decision has not been publicly announced.
Here's the difference in one table:
| Braddock Road Trail Access and Corridor Improvements | W. Braddock Road / N. Howard Street Study | |
|---|---|---|
| Where | Russell Road to West Street, near the Metro | W. Braddock Road, N. Van Dorn St to Crest St, plus N. Howard St |
| Status | Approved, in detailed design | Concept phase, preferred design pending |
| Who decided | Traffic and Parking Board, Feb 23; City Council, May 16 | Not yet decided |
| Construction | Anticipated 2028 | Funding not yet identified |
| Can comment still change it | No | Yes, until a preferred concept is chosen |
What's already locked in
For North Ridge residents, this is the project you'll notice the moment you cross Russell Road heading toward the Metro or Old Town. The approved project removes most on-street parking on Braddock Road between Mount Vernon Avenue and Russell Road, with two exceptions: about 100 feet in the unit block of E. Braddock Road and 60 feet in the 200 block. It also removes parking on Commonwealth Avenue between Braddock Road and Spring Street, reduces travel lanes from two to one in each direction between Mount Vernon Avenue and West Street, and adds a two-way protected bike lane on the north side near the Metro station. The city's own numbers from the hearing record: 17 crashes between 2019 and 2023 in the project area, with 8 injuries, and a pedestrian fatality at the Braddock Road and Commonwealth Avenue intersection in 2015.
The appeal came from Good Shepherd Lutheran Church at 100 W. Luray Avenue and Community Praise Church at 1400 Russell Road, both concerned about parking their congregations rely on. Council's compromise kept two ADA spaces in front of Good Shepherd, added sidewalks on Luray and Hancock avenues near the church, and added crosswalks at Luray, Hancock, Little Street, and Ramsay Street. Carrie Giddins of the Save Braddock Road Coalition told ALXnow after the vote that the decision would affect what buyers are willing to pay for a house they can no longer pull up in front of. That's a resident's opinion offered in public testimony, not a verified outcome, but it captures how personal a parking spot can feel once a vote makes it permanent.
What's still up for grabs
This is the one that actually runs along North Ridge's own edge. The west-end study is a different animal. The city presented four options for W. Braddock Road at the June 4 open house: protected bike lanes on each side of the road, a protected two-way cycle track, a hybrid that narrows to a single repurposed lane at the King Street and Quaker Lane intersection, and a no-change baseline. N. Howard Street has three options along the same spectrum. Jonathan Krall of the Grassroots Alexandria Steering Committee and Zack DesJardins, vice chair for cycling on the city's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, both told the Alexandria Times they favor the full protected-lane option because it's the simplest to build and easiest for riders to enter and exit.
The stakes here are different from the Metro-area project. This corridor is the daily walking and biking route between the King Street and Minnie Howard campuses of Alexandria City High School, and between 350 and 450 students choose to walk it during the school day rather than take the provided shuttle. St. Stephen's & St. Agnes Middle School and Episcopal High School sit along the same stretch. The city cites 56 crashes in the study area between 2021 and 2025, a different window and a longer corridor than the Metro-area count, so the two numbers aren't a fair head-to-head, but they explain why the city is running two separate studies instead of one.
The PTSA newsletter's claim that the city skipped Alexandria City Public Schools didn't hold up well under its own paper trail. The 2023 Safe Routes to School walk audit that underlies this study was produced with ACPS involvement, and outgoing PTSA president Missy Estabrook later confirmed the letter had been written about the other project before being repurposed for this one, according to reporting from the Alexandria Brief. The current funding for the west-end study covers concept work only. No construction dollars have been identified yet, which means even after a preferred design is chosen, the timeline to shovels in the ground is still open.
The third name that isn't a bike lane study at all
If you noticed orange cones on King Street this summer, that wasn't either of these projects. The city's separate King Street Access and Safety Improvements Study at Alexandria City High School reached a preferred design earlier this year, and construction on King Street between West Braddock Road and Chinquapin Drive began July 6, expanding bus stops and reworking the lane layout in front of the school. It's finished planning and is now a construction zone, distinct from both Braddock Road efforts.
One more name will show up if you read the city's capital budget: the FY 2027 through FY 2029 street resurfacing list includes West Braddock Road from Quaker Lane to Van Dorn Street on the FY 2028 schedule. That's a repaving line item, not a redesign. Three different city processes are using the words "Braddock Road" at the same time, on three different tracks, and only one of them is still taking public input on what the road looks like.
If you want your comment to count
- Skip the parking-removal argument for the Metro-area segment. That vote happened May 16 and the design is locked.
- Watch the city's project page for the W. Braddock Road and N. Howard Street study for the preferred concept announcement, and if it hasn't posted yet, that's your window to weigh in before it does.
- Don't confuse July's King Street construction, which is already built and paid for, with either bike lane study still on paper.
- If your comment is about student safety near Minnie Howard or King Street, direct it at the west-end study specifically. That's the one built around the 350-450 students who walk the corridor daily, not the Metro-area redesign.
The confusion is understandable. The name is the same and the maps overlap at the edges. But one of these decisions is behind you and one is still being written, and the difference determines whether showing up actually does anything.
For more on what's changing in the neighborhoods we cover, or if you'd like to talk about what any of this means for your own street, the team at Patterson Real Estate Group is always glad to help. Request a complimentary home valuation and strategy consultation whenever you're ready.
