THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 31, 1995 TAG: 9507310058
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ALEXANDRIA LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
An unusual mixture of single people and affluence is creating a problem for residents and officials of this Washington suburb: There are nearly as many cars as people.
More than 104,000 motor vehicles are registered in Alexandria. Its total population is about 115,000, and an estimated 100,000 of those residents are of driving age.
No other jurisdiction in the area comes close to Alexandria's cars-to-people ratio. It is at the forefront of a nationwide trend in which almost every adult has a car - and many people have more than one.
Traffic jams are no longer just rush-hour headaches. Parking is a perpetual problem, particularly in the historic Old Town area. Getting a car into a repair shop often means a long wait.
``You've got to look at the demographics,'' City Manager Vola Lawson said. ``The average resident is a single person who has never been married, and that person needs a car.''
The Washington area is prime territory for multi-vehicle households. It is the richest metropolitan area in the nation - median household income is about $53,000 - and it has the highest number of workers per household, said Alan E. Pisarski, a transportation policy consultant in Falls Church.
Given Alexandria's unusual demographics, he added, it shouldn't be surprising that the city has lots of cars. More than 40 percent of Alexandria households consist of one person, according to the 1990 Census, ranking the city third in the nation in number of one-person households.
Even though nearly 20 percent of Alexandria's workers commute to work on public transportation, according to the census, most of them own cars. And families that own several cars never seem to have enough to go around.
``Having three or four cars in a household does seem to be pretty common around here,'' said Nell Mercer, whose family has five drivers and three cars. ``If anything goes wrong with one of the cars, it gets a little tough.''
Without enough cars to go around, Mercer said, ``I've got to drive everybody everywhere, and you can't be in two places at once. It's a no-win situation.''
Not all the cars registered in Alexandria are for daily use. For some car-conscious and childless couples, extra autos are driven for fun and collected for profit.
Chip and Linda Whitton knock around town in a plain old Subaru, but on special occasions they will drag out the '49 Caddy, the '71 Rolls, the '58 Bentley or another of their seven vintage autos.
``These are toys we can drive,'' Whitton said. by CNB