Friday, April 25, 2008

VA Morning Commute

I have been here long enough now to enjoy my morning commute. The first part is about 5 miles and takes me from the residential area to I-95 North. It is a 2 lane road that turns into a 3 lane road each way about 2 miles from I-95 and it is just traffic about 8 red lights, nothing eventful and traffic moves quickly. Then I merge onto I-95 North, this is where the fun begins. It is a 3 lane interstate that has 2 additional HOV High Occupancy Vehicle Lanes - motorcycles, buses, vans, or cars with more than 3 occupants are required during the morning rush. Rush is from 6:00am to 9:30am. Anyway, I enjoy the drive, listen to my new favorite non music radio station 103.5 WTOP http://www.wtop.com/ it is all news, weather, and as they call it around here the "sprawl and crawl" refers to traffic. I must admit they do a fantastic job of telling you the traffic status, they tell it at all the 8's meaning that you get a traffic update at 8, 18, 28, 38, 48, and 58 minutes past the hour. But what I really enjoy while driving is watching the other drivers. For example you have your lane changers who think they can get to their destination quicker by constantly changing lanes, with or without signaling. Then you your space takers aka lane changers if you leave any amount of space between you and the vehicle in front of you they claim it and homestead it. At one point in my commute I have to go through the Springfield mixing bowl. This is the location where I-95, I-395, and I-495 all intersect, not to mention some exits for local roads approaching this interchange 3 I-95 lanes has now become 7 lanes.. It's quite comical to see the vehicle dances. The layout is all I-495 N/E traffic is left 2 lanes, all marked from at least a mile back. Washington DC via I-395 N is the middle 3 lanes and I-495 S/W are the 2 right lanes. Ok so you are a daily commuter then if you want I-495 S/W towards Tysons Corner (right lanes) why are you in one of the left lanes to head I-495 N/E or vice versa. The same also applies to those in the middle 3 lanes you have had over a mile to find your right or left lane - why do you wait so long? Ok now that you have gotten this far, here is the one that beats all and I'm going to adopt it as a new driving habit. When the traffic is slow, moving at about 20 miles per hour, or even standing still at times, I love to watch drivers in the far right lane who are in front of me or in back of me make a mad dash for the entrance on ramp to the interstate. Have a clue as to why they do that - they do that so that they can get further up in the traffic line. They literally pull out of line and drive up the on ramp as far as they can and pull back into traffic. If one tries that trick on me I hug the bumper of the car in front of me - I'm not giving up my place in traffic so that some local commuter can get to work a little quicker. I've added a link to WTOP and if you go to their website and click on the "traffic" tab you can pull up any of over 400 traffic cameras and watch the show for yourself. See if any of you can find my truck on the way to work or going home in the evening. Finally just for laughs read the article on WTOP about the DC streetcars the the District bought for $10 Million with taxpayers money. They are being used in the Czech Republic - why you ask - because the city bought them and never put down street car tracks in DC nor have they selected any company to run them...

1 comment:

Kari said...

Uhhhh Wayne... Where is the Link???

Love You TONS!