City of Alexandria one step closer to having its own “Richmond Highway”

May 8, 2018 Community News, Politics

Richmond Highway signs

If you’ve enjoyed the confusion of having two Alexandrias in Northern Virginia, good news: We’ll soon have two Richmond Highways — both with Alexandria addresses — in completely different places. That’s because the City of Alexandria is one step closer to adopting the name “Richmond Highway” for some, but not all, of Route 1 within city limits.

Alexandria City Manager Mark B. Jinks, following the lead of the city’s Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Renaming Jefferson Davis Highway, has pushed forward a recommendation that “Richmond Highway” become the new moniker for the stretch of roadway currently named after the  president of the Confederacy. If approved, the name change would only affect the part of U.S. 1 in Alexandria named after Davis — which runs from Arlington to the top of Old Town — and not the two other stretches of Route 1 in the city, which are known as Patrick Street and Henry Street. So even after the change, Alexandria will still have three different names for Route 1 within its borders. 

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The section of Route 1 in the City of Alexandria that will now be named Richmond Highway. (City of Alexandria image)

The recommendation was made with the blessing of Arlington County, where U.S. 1 is also known as Jefferson Davis Highway. Arlington does not have the power to change the road’s name due to a state law, but said in 2017 that it “expect[s] that the name Alexandria selects will be suitable for our section of Jefferson Davis Highway as well,” should the law be changed.

So there will be at least one new “Richmond Highway” nearby — pending final approval by the Alexandria City Council — and maybe a third “Richmond Highway” when/if Arlington gets the authority to dump the Jefferson Davis moniker. 

The Ad Hoc Advisory Group — which was composed of Alexandria and Arlington members — considered a number of other options for renaming Jeff Davis Highway, including Abraham Lincoln, Alexandria-Arlington, Barack Obama and Heather Heyer.

In the end, they decided using a person would be too risky.

“The members agreed that the street should not be named for an individual person, since public sentiment about any individual may change over time,”Jinks said in a letter to the city council.

It is unclear what negative information the advisory group expects might come out against Lincoln, 153 years after his death. 

The issue isn’t a done deal yet — the Alexandria City Council takes up the recommendation at its meeting on Tuesday, and a public hearing on the issue is tentatively set for June 23. 

The city manager’s letter said a number of considerations were kept in mind when picking “Richmond Highway,” including confusion with other street names (in Alexandria or Arlington) and the effect a name change would have on public safety calls. It does not say if any consideration was given to Richmond Highway’s role as an identifier for residents in the southeastern section of Fairfax County surrounding U.S. 1.

Fairfax County residents from Huntington to Fraconia to Little River Turnpike are stuck with the sometimes maddening postal designation of “Alexandria,” despite living miles from the city itself. But many in the Route 1 area have latched on to Richmond Highway as an alternative identifier — a way of separating themselves from the City of Alexandria and other parts of the so-called “Alexandria section of Fairfax.”

The road’s name pervades various parts of the local culture, with social media full of references to being from the “Highway” or just “HWY.” Even the rivalry between West Potomac and Mount Vernon has embraced the road, dubbing their meetings “The Battle of the Highway.” 

If the City of Alexandria adopts the Richmond Highway name, it will have no effect on the variety of names that Route 1 goes by in Virginia. Aside from the the two other names within the city alone, there will be at least 17 names for the road throughout the rest of the state (there is also a Richmond Highway in Lynchburg, but it is not U.S. 1).

Nonetheless, Alexandria argues that changing the name of Route 1 in part of Alexandria will make things less confusing for drivers. 

“Using the same Richmond Highway name for contiguous stretches of road would be more understandable to motorists in terms of navigation and wayfinding,” the city manager’s letter said. “This is especially important in this instance as Jefferson Davis Highway is connected to two heavily traveled Interstate highways (I-66 and I-395).”