A cartoon orange construction barrel brandishing a shovel greets commuters as they drive north on Interstate 270, about 10 miles south of Frederick. “Thanks for your patience,” the sign reads as the construction site ends.
Heading southbound, the feeling is much less cordial. Just past 7:30 a.m., traffic slows to a crawl around Germantown. And that’s being generous.
Drivers regularly sit in hours-long congestion in Washington’s notoriously bad traffic — ranked second-worst in the country — but summertime construction designed to ease the pain is making conditions even more frustrating for drivers morning, noon and night.
“Summertime is prime time for road construction,” said Lon Anderson, director of public and government affairs for travel group AAA Mid-Atlantic. “The good news is that we have federal money flowing in to stimulate road construction projects.”
The project on I-270, for example, is a repaving project funded by federal stimulus dollars, and most of the work is done at off-peak hours. The massive InterCounty Connector project, designed to link I-270 with I-95 north of the Capital Beltway and not funded with stimulus money, is causing constant delays along commuter routes.
While stimulus funding has allowed some paving, rehabilitation and safety projects to go forward, that road work closes lanes — and backs up traffic. The average driver in the Washington area already is stuck in traffic for 62 hours a year, according to a study by the Texas Transportation Institute.
“The good news is commuter traffic is lighter by 10 to 15 percent, but the bad news is the folks that are left here in town are going to have construction-related delays from time to time,” Anderson said.
Massive projects such as adding high-occupancy toll lanes to the Beltway in Northern Virginia, building Dulles Rail in Tysons Corner and widening I-95 are especially adding to the region’s traffic woes, while the stimulus-funded projects have had a smaller effect, said Gerald Miller, chief of transportation program coordination at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.
Michelle Ernst, a staff analyst for a New York nonprofit working to reduce dependence on cars in that area, says New York’s extensive subway system gives the region’s commuters a way to opt out from the crunch.
“But when you’re talking about Northern Virginia or suburban Maryland with no Metro access, you’re going to be stuck in that Beltway traffic,” she said.
Indeed, commuters are dealing with the delays, albeit grudgingly.
Blanca Gataca of Germantown was at the Shady Grove Metro Station on her 90-minute commute to her job — actually an improvement over her previous two-hour drive to the District.
“Since that Metro accident, it’s been the pits,” said Susan Goodman of Olney, of the crowded Metro trains.
One woman was in such a hurry she didn’t have time to stop and complain, instead multitasking and pointing to her headset.
Commuters are simply going to have to deal with the construction, which Anderson describes as “a necessary evil to get to the promised land.”
Steven Titunik, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Virginia Megaprojects, said that with many major projects underway, there is perhaps no other area in the country with such a level of construction.
“No matter how fortunate it is, the problem is there’s a price to pay” with how motorists get through the area during construction, Titunik said.
“Even though a project may take five years, we’re not going to be in ‘your lane’ for five years,” he said.
