All it took was a morning crash to tie up traffic for some 10 miles on the Beltway Wednesday, the latest snarl for a region already known for having the second-worst traffic delays nationwide.
Yet it was August, still summer vacation, before many local schools have started up for the year and vacationers have returned to the workaday rat race.
“Although it’s still August, August isn’t August anymore,” said John Townsend, a spokesman for drivers’ club AAA Mid-Atlantic. “The Beltway is already over capacity. It wasn’t built for this volume it now has.”
The hit-and-run crash occurred at about 6:40 a.m. in the right lane of the northbound lanes of Interstate 495 just south of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, said Virginia Department of Transportation spokeswoman Jennifer Smith McCord.
Emergency crews closed down the lane at 6:55 a.m., she said, but cleared it as of about 7:14 a.m.
Stuck in traffic
The cities with the worst congestion:
Metro areaLos AngelesWashingtonAtlantaHoustonSan FranciscoDallasDetroitMiamiNew YorkPhoenixSource: Texas Transportation Institute, 2007 data
Delay per driver in hours per year
70
62
57
56
55
53
52
47
44
44
Still, traffic backed up about 10 miles to the Little River Turnpike in Annandale, she said. That’s nearly a sixth of the 64-mile line artery that is central to Washington’s road network. For many commuters, it was more of the same.
The words “Beltway” and “massive gridlock” have become synonymous, Townsend said. The road that was planned 50 years ago now carries about 250,000 drivers a day, Townsend said. Just one lane closure can throw the system out of whack, especially during rush hour.
Washington-area drivers face the second-worst delays in the country, behind only Los Angeles, according to the latest study by the Texas Transportation Institute. Drivers wasted more than 60 hours delayed in traffic, the survey found using 2007 data.
Other more recent surveys since have suggested that traffic has decreased somewhat, as commuters reduced the number of miles driven amid last summer’s record-high gasoline prices and the current economic crisis.
Still, drivers stuck in commutes like those on Wednesday may not have felt the difference.
Virginia officials are hoping that special high-occupancy toll lanes, known as HOT lanes, under construction on the Beltway will help alleviate the pressure with tolls that vary according to traffic. Others are hoping to create more transit options to convince more people to get off the roads entirely.
