City of Alexandria now has its own “Richmond Highway”

It’s official: The City of Alexandria, long known for giving southeast Fairfax its raw sewage, will soon take something from the Richmond Highway community — the name “Richmond Highway.”

The Alexandria City Council voted Saturday to change the name of a short stretch of U.S. 1 inside the city from Jefferson Davis Highway to “Richmond Highway.” The move, effective Jan. 1, strips the name of the secessionist president of the Confederacy in favor the name long used by Fairfax County (and only Fairfax County — no other county or city uses “Richmond Highway” for U.S. 1 in the state).

While the move will strip the name of a disgraced non-Virginian from U.S. 1, it won’t do much to ease confusion of road names in the area. The city will still have three different names for U.S. 1 within its borders, with Henry Street (southbound) and Patrick Street (northbound) remaining the names of the road in the Old Town section.

Alexandria’s “Richmond Highway” won’t connect the real Richmond Highway in Fairfax, since Henry Street will remain the name at the southern end of the city. So Northern Virginia will now have two unconnected Richmond Highways, in different municipalities, each with Alexandria mailing addresses.

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

Other suggestions for renaming Jefferson Davis Highway failed to gain traction during Alexandria’s process. The city’s Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Renaming Jefferson Davis Highway, which was formed in 2015, picked “Richmond Highway” over Abraham Lincoln, Alexandria-Arlington, Barack Obama, Heather Heyer, Mildred and Richard Loving, and Patrick Henry. Part of the four-member group’s reasoning for the pick was that “the street should not be named for an individual person, since public sentiment about any individual may change over time.”

“The members pointed out that U.S. Route 1 is already named Richmond Highway in Fairfax County, and that the name would have historic and current significance without inherent controversy,” Alexandria City Manager Mark Jinks said in a letter to council that described the name-changing process.

And while Jefferson Davis is gone, the City of Alexandria still has numerous streets named for Confederates — so many that the Ad Hoc group could not even come up with an exact number.