Commuters stuck sitting on Rockville Pike, around Mark Center Montgomery County commutes have doubled, tripled, even quadrupled as thousands of patients and hospital employees crowd the already failing roads around Bethesda’s military medical center — and it’s only going to get worse, officials say.

The new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, with its 2,500 new employees and hundreds of thousands of new patients, is giving drivers constant headaches as they search for winding routes and back roads to avoid the gridlock on Rockville Pike and other roads around the hospital.