Pausa de Correspondencia

As we previewed in our last issue, we’re taking a midsummer break from our typical format this week to run our first ever mailbag edition of ALXtra. We’re eager to see how this goes! On one hand we’re really excited to see what’s on your mind and respond to it, rather than blindly guessing like we usually do. On the other hand what if what you want to hear about is our hot takes on best practices in pothole management, as the half dozen of increasingly agitated letters from “Joe in Rosemont” seem to suggest. Sorry “Joe in Rosemont” (if that even is your real name) take it up with Alex311, we’ve got other questions to answer.

On to your letters!

Scott: 

Why was Potomac Yard designed with zero retail, Main Street, etc.? Oakville Triangle seems like a good example of what it could’ve been. Is there any hope for adding some of that or is PY a lost cause?

Anytime Potomac Yard comes up (and this includes the time a couple years ago when it established new frontiers for Alexandria main character energy) the first thing we like to do is point people to the city’s Master Plan website where there is a wealth of information about the Potomac Yard small area plan that many people haven’t seen or been exposed to. Discussions about the redevelopment of Potomac Yard go all the way back to the 1990s (you can google some pretty fun stories about the fight over putting a professional football stadium there) but pertinent to most of what we’re talking about today was the small area plan for North Potomac Yard that was first passed in 2010 and then amended in 2017.

You can read the whole plan here and if you haven’t ever taken the time to flip through it it’s definitely worth your time—not the least of which because it’s a great example of the thoughtful and thorough work that city staff and local resident volunteers put into our planning process, but also because you’ll realize how little of the intended comprehensive vision for Potomac Yard has actually been realized. Scott asks why there’s no main street or neighborhood serving retail in Potomac Yard, and well the answer is more or less… we haven’t gotten to it yet. As you can see in this map of the different landbays that make up Potomac Yard, the developers started by doing all of the residential construction that was planned for the southernmost landbays in the site, with nearly all of the retail and activated spaces planned for Landbay F in North Potomac Yard. Since all of that is still parking lots and big box stores (more on this below), the neighborhood is lacking the kind of walkable retail and activation that the small area plan envisioned.

To take this question up a level though, Scott is raising an important point about Alexandria’s need for more Main Street–style strips in neighborhoods across the city. What makes Mount Vernon Avenue in Del Ray special isn’t just the convenience (although that’s great) or the multiple places to get pizza (which is less great) but it’s the human connection of constantly running into friends and neighbors. We’re seeing that start to get built out in North Old Town with the new development around Montgomery Street and the arts district connecting into the power plant redevelopment, but we need more Main Street spaces in the West End, especially as we get closer to the Landmark redevelopment being fully realized.

Emily:

I hear there may still be time to submit questions to ALextra? I have more of a comment than a question. This is a picture I took on a walk last week (note: I was NOT the perpetrator). These people had tree branches hanging low over the sidewalk and some stealth good Samaritan sawed those branches. I am VERY PRO for walkability reasons. My comment is: trim your shit or face the vigilante vegetation trimmer.

Emily, thank you for this important PSA and wow, we’re definitely going to circle back to your spelling of this newsletter’s name later. Alexandrians with sidewalk-adjacent trees: be warned that a pole-saw-wielding defender of pedestrian safety roams our streets. You might want to take care of your wayward foliage preemptively before he/she/they strike. Arborists, master gardeners, and other assorted dendrophiles: please send your defenses of this person’s brave actions to alxtranewsletter@gmail.com (negative reactions and criticism should be directed to letters@alextimes.com). Everyone else simply needs and deserves to know that a righteous warrior walks among us. Not all heroes wear capes, etc.

Scott again: 

What’s going on at the stadium-that-was-not-to-be location? Instead of watching Ovi’s last season and the Dybantsa dynasty begin, it appears we have a nice bus depot area. 

Ah, the arena! We’re almost nostalgic for those halcyon days of fighting with our neighbors about something other than roadway design. It feels like an eternity since the city’s movers and shakers gathered in a giant tent for the announcement of this ill-fated proposal and yet we’re still living in the aftermath of Glenn Youngkin’s Humiliation Pavilion to this very day. After Louise Lucas flipped the dealmaking table like a bison rampaging through a Yellowstone National Park designated picnic area, Potomac Yard’s commercial tenants settled in for the long haul, so the Target shopping center corner of the neighborhood is likely off-limits to redevelopment for the foreseeable future. Some residential projects have been approved in the parcels south of where the arena would have gone, and—as you note—a flock of migratory school buses has roosted in an empty lot to enjoy the longer summer daylight hours of the city’s northern breeding grounds. But that’s pretty much all the action there is to report from the past two years. 

That said, there’s still a bunch of empty land sitting next to a Metro station and a team of highly motivated AEDP employees begging someone, anyone, to build something on it. It’s not gonna be an office building, a category of structure that’s rapidly approaching obsolescence—so our hopes remain firmly pinned on an entertainment-related use that can bring in some sweet, sweet commercial revenue and more importantly give us something fun to do on the weekends. We’re bored! Basically we’d be cool with pretty much anything as long as it isn’t a data center. Or a Sphere. If Maryland’s getting one then we don’t want it, sorry but that’s just how it is. Stephanie Landrum we hope you’re taking notes.

Kayla: 

If you’re going to end up haunting a place in Alexandria, where is it going to be?

Becky will haunt the Braddock Road cannon so she can fire spectral cannonballs at people who block the new bike lanes. Jesse will haunt the Taco Bell Cantina in Old Town when he dies there this weekend after eating their lettuce.

John:

I have recently joined an Alexandria Commission. I know they’re all different with different goals and different responsibilities, but I also know you both have been on a Board or Commission or two. So I was wondering if you had generally applicable thoughts about (1) what makes an Alexandria Board or Commission successful? (2) what makes a Board Member or Commissioner successful? (3) what makes them ineffectual and/or downright counterproductive?  

This is a topic that we’ve tackled in the newsletter a time or two before (most comprehensively in the opening essay of this issue) but we’re always happy to talk about our local Boards and Commissions because they really do matter and make a difference, and can have a significant impact on progress in Alexandria. John’s lens on the question—what elements have an impact on success—is an important angle, and we actually got a pretty good answer to this when we interviewed Praveen Kathpal a few issues ago. He made the point that you really need to understand what authority the commission (and/or the city) actually has because a) we’re a Dillon Rule state, which means the city’s policymaking is frequently constrained, and b) the overwhelming majority of our local Commissions are not policymaking bodies, but rather advisory groups and/or vectors for resident communication and transparency.

If you walk into a Board or Commission role thinking that you will be making decisions about the policy direction of the issues covered by that body, you’re likely to wind up feeling disappointed and unsuccessful. But if you walk into that role thinking that you have a chance to get much smarter on a particular topic, to inform the process by asking questions or suggesting other connections to explore, to build relationships with city staff and local experts that work on that topic, and then look for opportunities to share information about this issue with your neighbors and your local social network—you’re going to wind up feeling like a pretty successful and effective Commissioner.

Our Boards and Commissions are a crucial piece of local accountability. But we’ve noticed a persistent tension in what people think accountability means. It’s not just having the ability to vote against a city proposal, or to stop the city from doing something. Accountability at its best is being in a position to ask questions like: why did we choose to do it this way; what else did we consider; are there opportunities we’re missing by doing it this way as opposed to another; what contingencies are in place to adjust if things don’t work out the way we expect; etc. Asking questions like these doesn’t mean you think the city is wrong, or that you know the correct answer (at least, it shouldn’t mean those things). Asking these questions—performing this kind of accountability—is more about process diligence, about creating opportunities to test ideas, and about strengthening the underlying reasoning. To us, this more than anything is what a successful and effective Commission looks like.

Susan: 

I noticed that Waymo has arrived in Alexandria. What features of our city do you think will challenge robot taxis the most? 

We covered this a little bit in a previous issue where we wished Waymo the best of luck trying to figure out how to drive through the King/Quaker/Braddock intersection. So yeah, we definitely think they’ll struggle with that. They’re also going to have a hell of a time with the Captain’s Row cobblestones, the Warwick Village mini-roundabout, and lower Prince Street at high tide.

Speaking of the King/Quaker/Braddock intersection, we also got a question about when we’re going to fix that cursed piece of roadway. The simple answer is probably never, and here’s why. We’re not transportation planners or traffic engineers, but we’re willing to guess the cost of reengineering that intersection is somewhere between “a lot of money” and “the bond ratings agencies laughing at us like they’re Ray Liotta in Goodfellas.” And that being the case, we’re sort of forced to ask: if the city did have that kind of money lying around… is fixing that intersection what we’d spend it on? Probably not, right? There’s a pretty goddamn long list of schools, and parks, and stormwater projects, and all manner of other priorities that are probably in line ahead of it. So as much as we desperately want to live in the future of a King/Quaker/Braddock roundabout with pedestrian tunnels that go underneath between the two high schools… we’re not holding our breath.

Kayla again:

How would you assign notorious Alexandrians to yearbook superlatives? Best Dressed, Best Entertainer, Most Athletic, Most Town Spirit, Most Likely to Win Jeopardy, Most Likely To Survive a Zombie Apocalypse?

Oh we thought you guys were going to ask us hard questions! Come on, this is a layup. We were born to answer a question like this.

• Best Dressed: Justin Wilson, duh. Have you seen what that man can do with a leather dress sandal??
• Best Entertainer: This is a tie between Kali Uchis, Dermot Mulroney, and anyone who gives public hearing testimony in the form of slam poetry.
• Most Athletic: Sarah Bagley, our bike-riding vice mayor, all the way (if Noah Lyles moves back here for good we are willing to revisit this one).
• Most Town Spirit: Nobody does it better than town crier Ben Fiore-Walker. Next question.
• Most Likely to Win Jeopardy: Setting aside the actual Alexandrians who have won Jeopardy (but not Becky because she doesn’t know the letters of the fucking Greek alphabet, ugh) [Editor’s note: wait… you were on Jeopardy?? You’ve never brought this up before. This is the first I’m hearing of it], we’ve got to go with Steven Pruitt, the ALX resident who holds the record for most all-time Wikipedia edits. God we love living in this city of weirdos (complimentary).
• Most Likely to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse: Mayor Gaskins. You know she already has a plan for this and she’s going to walk us through it clearly and succinctly on Instagram every morning as soon as the undead invasion starts. We’re in good hands! 

A different John: 

I moved into the area just before the pandemic started, and spent the time I would normally have been exploring my new surrounds socially isolating and avoiding indoor gatherings. That’s now passed, but I feel I missed my window to find out what’s what here. So, as connoisseurs of all things Alexandria, what would you suggest as a crash course in understanding how to make the most out of living here? 

John, the good news is it’s never too late to start enjoying life in ALX to the fullest! We’re going to briefly pretend we’re one of those cool influencer accounts on Instagram or Tiktok and respond to this question in the format of a numbered list: OUR TOP FIVE HACKS FOR LIVING YOUR BEST ALEXANDRIA LIFE!!! *upbeat ukulele soundtrack plays* *fire and sparkle emojis stream across the screen* *sped-up video montage begins*

1. Find your people! You can’t swing a dead rabid raccoon in this town without hitting dozens of awesome Alexandrians [Editor’s note: please don’t actually touch rabid raccoons] and our lives here are rich and rewarding because of the communities we’ve built. There are many ways to connect with new friends in ALX—either in person (events at local businesses like book clubs at Old Town Books or line dancing at Lost Boy Cider can be fun options) or online (Bluesky has a hyperactive community of Alexandrians, as we’ve written about before, and some of the big ALX Facebook groups seem to be effective at connecting people for IRL meetups). You can also try to befriend your neighbors the old-fashioned way, as long as they pass the Yard Sign Ideological Compatibility test.
2. Support hyperlocal media! The Washington Post may be dying faster than Odysseus’ buddies after they eat the sun god’s cows, but over here across the river we have an abundance of Alexandria-specific journalism outlets putting out information daily about business openings, events, festivals, and other such tidbits that come in handy when you’re trying to build a social life. If you incorporate a local publication like the Alexandria Brief into your media diet you’ll be extremely clued-in to goings-on about town; bonus points if you financially support them so they can keep doing what they’re doing into the future.
3. Make an effort to get to know different parts of the city! Old Town is fabulous of course and its shops, restaurants, and attractions are well publicized. But did you know you can also spend an afternoon exploring Fort Ward, visit Buddie Ford Nature Center (for free!), spot beavers in Ben Brenman Pond, go rock climbing at Sportrock, launch a kayak on Four Mile Run, bike the Holmes Run Trail, buy locally made art in Del Ray, and thrift vintage home goods in Eisenhower? Not to mention trying incredible food from all over the world in every corner of Alexandria. Get out there and explore—which is easy to do by all sorts of transit options including bike, bus, and metro. Please note however that if you cross the border into Fake Alexandria you will become known as a fraud and a betrayer, and you will be dead to us.
4. Advocate for something! Find a reason to get engaged in local policy or politics. The number one way to feel more invested in your community is to support the things that make it great and push for ways to make it even better. You can join an advocacy group like Alexandria Families for Safe Streets, Tenants and Workers United, YIMBYs of NOVA, or just show up at city council and speak on your own behalf. Whatever issue you care about, we promise there’s an opportunity to champion or engage on it here. And if you can’t think of anything specific to do, there’s always another Ewald Park survey.
5. Go to all of the city’s big events! We’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of jokes about how our city loves a parade, but like… our city does love a parade. Make the effort to go be in the crowd for the Scottish Christmas Walk, or the George Washington Birthday Parade, or the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, or the Del Ray Halloween Parade. Add to that list Art on the Avenue in Del Ray, the Best of the West festival in the West End, the City Birthday Celebration in July, all of the Portside in Old Town events in the summer and many, many other fun, public events we are surely forgetting—the point is, one of the best things about living in Alexandria is there is almost always something cool to do on the weekend, and you should get out there and do it.

Paul:

During a standard length Word Cup pausa de hidratación, who would consume the most bourbon: one Jesse-sized Becky, or ten Becky-sized Jesses? 

This is an irrational question because there could not possibly be a Becky-sized Jesse. Jesse is Jesse because he is Jesse-sized. What, you think a Jesse that has to stand on a stool to reach things is still a Jesse? You think a Jesse that can fit in a standard airline seat is still a Jesse?? You think this godless abomination you contemplate of a Jesse that doesn’t hit his head on doorframes could ever exist within the natural order of the world?? Get the fuck out of here with this nonsense, a Becky-sized Jesse. It’s disgusting. You’re disgusting, Paul. We refuse to answer this!!

Ok, fine. Whatever. It would be ten Becky-sized Jesses, obviously. We still hate this question though.

Marta:

We have a power plant in our city and I am not sure you have talked about it yet? The Reworld (fka Covanta) waste-to-energy plant. As a sustainability professional, I’m pretty torn on it. Is it better than coal? Yes. Is it “renewable”? Absolutely not. Do we have precious little space for landfills? Yes, and we don't even turn them into ski hills like they do in Michigan! 

Could you please provide the history on this plant, share the scoop on the life cycle sustainability impact compared to alternatives, and make lots of garbage jokes along the way? It can’t be good for air quality to burn trash, right? What are the annual emissions this plant emits? How much of waste-to-energy is greenwashing and how much is legit? Should we demolish it and build nuclear SMRs?

Hi Marta! First of all, thank you for sending what is by far the wonkiest inquiry we received. Let’s talk trash and unpack this dumpster!! It seems like the root cause of your conflicted feelings about Reworld is that you’re sorting it into the wrong bin—thinking of it as a power plant when its primary function is to be a waste management facility. In other words, when the city worked with Arlington to develop the idea back in the 1980s, they weren’t thinking “let’s burn garbage as an energy generation method,” but rather “let’s burn garbage instead of sending it to a landfill, and oh cool this also happens to produce energy.”

Incinerating municipal waste sounds nasty in concept but actually has legit environmental benefits compared to landfilling: it produces fewer greenhouse gases (landfills full of rotting trash are giant methane farms) and avoids leaching pollution into groundwater. Incineration at high temperatures can also destroy contaminants like PFAS that could otherwise get into the environment. The main downside of waste-to-energy is air emissions, but Reworld uses advanced pollution control technology that it upgraded in 2022 and its emissions are consistently well below permit limits. You can look at daily monitoring data from the facility on the Reworld website and read about air quality in the city in last year’s State of the Air report—spoiler, it’s very good except when that incorrigible minx Canada blows wildfire smoke into our faces.

The point is, while it doesn’t really qualify as a “clean energy source,” waste-to-energy is definitely one of the better options for waste disposal and it makes sense to evaluate it in that context. European countries figured this out way before us, unsurprisingly, and have been incinerationmaxxing for decades. 

However, it’s also important to remember that burning garbage and dumping it in giant pits are not the only two waste management options available to us. Marta, we know you’re a Sarah J. Maas fan so we’re going to put this in terms you’ll appreciate. If we compare our options to Aelin’s love interests in the Throne of Glass series, landfilling is like Sam and Dorian—they were her first relationships but she moved on because they weren’t a great fit for her (also one of them died). Waste-to-energy is like Rowan—she’s in a long-term partnership with this guy and he’s annoying in some ways although overall pretty good. But recycling, composting, and generating less trash in the first place are like Chaol—underrated, unfairly overlooked, and clearly the best outcome [Editor’s note: YOU HAVE NEVER HAD A WORSE OPINION THAN THIS ONE, I AM SO MAD ABOUT THIS] if he, we mean they, would just be given a chance!! The city should focus more on incentivizing these options! JUSTICE FOR CHAOL REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE!!! 

And on that note [Editor’s note: on which note Becky, your trash opinion about Chaol or your good opinion about trash] we’re going to wrap up this inaugural edition of the ALXtra mailbag! Let us know in the comments or on Bluesky if you liked it and would like to see it again in the future.

There is a beach in each of our near futures, so we’ll be back in your inboxes next at the end of August. Don’t miss us too much, and have fun wherever your own summer adventures take you.

You can follow Becky @beckyhammer.bsky.social and Jesse @oconnell.bsky.social on Bluesky, or you can e-mail us anytime at alxtranewsletter@gmail.com.

ALXtra is a free-to-read newsletter about current events in Alexandria, Virginia. Subscribe to get it delivered directly to your inbox. Paid subscriptions give you access to the comments. Revenue from subscriptions gets used in the following ways: 1) a third goes into a charity fund, and every time that fund hits $500 we’ll make a donation to a local nonprofit in the name of ALXtra’s readers and we’ll feature and write about that organization, like we did here, here, here, here, here and here; 2) another third of the money will go toward investments in the newsletter; and 3) the final third of the money goes toward self-care for your two intrepid authors.