UPDATE: Alexandria City Council Hearing on Proposed Taco Bell Deferred to February

ALEXANDRIA, VA -- (UPDATE Tuesday 9:10 a.m.): Owners of a proposed new Taco Bell in Alexandria that has rankled the surrounding neighborhood fearful of traffic going from bad to worse have requested to defer a final hearing before the Alexandria City Council, a City spokesman confirmed. The item will be removed from the agenda for this Saturday's City Council meeting.

The proposal will now go before City Council at its Feb. 25 meeting. The applicant will use the time to "consider and address concerns" of the neighborhood.

Residents who live near the location of the proposed new restaurant had planned to give their final push to stop or at least delay the City's blessing for the new business at Saturday's City Council meeting, according to one of the neighbors leading the charge.

The proposed Taco Bell restaurant with a drive-through is expected to be located where the Enterprise rental car business is located at 4213 Duke St. in the City's West end.

Opponents of the plan say that there are currently traffic problems on N. Gordon Street, a residential street running alongside the proposed eatery, and it would only become worse with cars exiting onto the street. "There's already an existing problem. If a person has two broken legs, you don't add 50 pounds to him," said Alexa Glock, a resident and president of the Strawberry Hill group of neighbors who are actively opposing the establishment of the restaurant. "The traffic study wasn't comprehensive," she noted.

Glock said she and others have been meeting privately with members of the City Council to discuss their concerns.

In addition to N. Gordon problems made worse, eastbound traffic on Duke Street would also likely hold up traffic making a left into the restaurant, the neighbors point out. And with buses stopping at a stop just a short distance away in the righthand lane heading east on Duke, traffic heading eastbound could come to a complete standstill, they say.

With a sign for Taco Bell proposed for N. Gordon Street, neighbors say that drivers, instead of using the street in between the Taco Bell and the dialysis center next door, will try to pull in on that street, which planners say is actually the exit.

N. Gordon Street has become something of a one-way street, with cars, some day they belong to residents of a nearby apartment complex, parked along both sides of the street. Glock said that putting up "no parking" signs would only make those car owners park their cars deeper into the neighborhood.

A map below, prepared by Strawberry Hill Vice President Todd M. McMahon, shows the numbers of local residents who depend on getting in and out of the neighborhood on N. Gordon Street:

PHOTO rendering courtesy of City of Alexandria