Town Council Work Session

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Leesburg Town Council 1h 39m 4 speakers 8 agenda items transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What was the purpose of the Town Council work session call to order?

Kelly Burk 2:18

I would like to start a call to order tonight's Town Council work session of January 12th, 2026. Our first item for discussion tonight is the fire company request for the removal of parking spaces on Loudoun Street.

Unknown 2:33

Hello.

Neeraja Chandrapu 2:35

Good evening, Madam Mayor and council members. My name is Neeraja Chandrapu, and I'm a transportation engineer with the Department of Public Works and Capital Projects. And today I'm here to discuss about the topic fire company request for removal of parking spaces on Loudoun Street. I also have here with me the volunteer fire rescue chief, Logan Prash, and he can answer any questions that you may have related to their operations. So let's first get started with the background. So on October 7th, Leesburg Volunteer Fire Company requested removal of nine on-street parking spaces on Loudoun Street between King and Church Streets. The request was made due to the emergency vehicle access being obstructed by parked vehicles.

Neeraja Chandrapu 3:27

After that, town council directed staff to evaluate the request and report findings at a future work session, and is the reason why I'm here to present the findings. Let's first get started with the existing conditions. Lowden Street is a major through road through the town. The speed limit is 20 miles per hour, and the speed limit The fire rescue request is for the removal of the parking spaces, which is marked on the map as red color. And the speed limit is 20, and the daily volume on Loudoun Street is 8,900 vehicles per day. The total number of parking spaces request is for nine. Three are already planned to be removed with the church and market development. So we are talking effectively removing of six parking spaces.

Neeraja Chandrapu 4:28

The width of the street where this parking is from the face of the curb to the face of the curb is approximately 26.5 feet. We also looked at the crash data from January 2022 to July 2025, about three years, seven months. The total number of reported crashes were seven, out of which 70 percent of those crashes were side swipe crashes. All of them are property damage. There were no injury crashes and no crashes have been reported in 2023. So what I have presented here is only the reported crashes. So how it works is anything less than a certain amount, those will not be reported. So there might be other crashes which might not be reported but less in the property damage. This image shows the cross section of the Loudoun Street.

Neeraja Chandrapu 5:29

There is a seven feet parking lane. This seven feet is including the curb and gutter, which is approximately two feet. So five feet of pavement and two feet of curb and gutter. So there is a seven feet parking space. And there is a nine feet westbound travel lane. And in the eastbound direction, the travel lane width is 10.5 feet. So the lane widths that are shown on the Loudoun Street, these are less than the standard lane widths. And there is a requirement on when to allow parking on one side of the road by Loudoun County Fire and Rescue manual requirements. One of the requirement is for the fire apparatus access roads, there shall be a minimum of 20 feet unobstructed width, like not counting the width of the parking lane.

Neeraja Chandrapu 6:40

And also, there is a recommendation on when to allow on street parking. And based on those guidelines, if the width from the face of the curb to the face of the curb is less than 28 feet, then no parking should be allowed. If the width of the street is between 28 and 36 feet, then parking is allowed on one side of the road. And if it is greater than 36 feet, then parking is allowed on both sides of the road. Currently, the Loudoun Street is 26.5, which is less than the required 28 feet to allow for parking on one side of the road. So vehicles parked along this stretch, I'm sure when you all are going through this section might have experienced also, there is encroachment into the opposing lanes, creating some safety hazards.

Neeraja Chandrapu 7:42

And there is also a delivery activity in the loading zones near the intersection with the South King Street, which further constructs lane widths and limits the sight distance.