Posted on 10/27/2017 11:12:57 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
All I could do was sigh when I saw a recent article discussing a new study that named the Interstate 95 corridor between Exit 133 and the Fairfax County Parkway as the worst traffic “hot spot” in the nation. The article was circulated around the Prince William County school where I teach.
Every minute added onto my 34-mile round trip to work creates huge consequences for me. The trip used to take an ideal 45 minutes, but it has grown to a jaw-dropping 2½ hours — creating significant consequences for me and my children. I am not prone to “road rage,” but more than two hours of heavy traffic will wear on anyone’s nerves. Merging into small spaces with little margin for error, constantly being on alert in case you are in someone’s blind spot and watching other drivers to try to notice who is dangerously distracted, combined with frustration at the situation and fear of being late, create more stress. We’ve heard before about the physical consequences of prolonged stress.
Two of my three children are school-age and need to be driven to their extracurricular activities. Each is playing one sport this season, and one is managing the school volleyball team. As far as I can tell, three activities for two children is a fairly typical number for families in this area.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
No job in this world is worth five hours of daily commuting in heavy traffic.
We need to cut the DC area workforce severely to solve this problem.
My in-laws used to live in Sterling, VA. It’s bad. The area has seen a massive build-up, even during the depressed Obama years. It’s also rife with MS-13. They got the hell out and I’m glad they did.
I sincerely hope that her 2 and 1/2 hours is actually for the round trip.
I think it's 2 1/2 hours round trip. She is just a poor writer and the WP apparently does not employ editors.
"Every minute added onto my 34-mile round trip to work creates huge consequences for me. The trip used to take an ideal 45 minutes, but it has grown to a jaw-dropping 2½ hours"
By the way 34 miles in 5 hours is 6.8 mph. That is way too slow to be believable for a full 5 continuous hours every day.
When I lived in Falls Church there wasn’t a Stirling.
Oh, but I LOVE living here .....
as long as I don't have to drive to work, shopping, church, friends, family, or even to GET to the point where I can get out on vacation.
My experience driving a truck in and around northern Virginia revealed the most vanity plates in any state I've been in (not OTR, not every state, but most east of the Mississippi and a few upper mid west).
I dreaded any rush hour of any day. It was indeed a couple of hours plus as admitted here.
I did the Fredericksburg to DC commute for 9 years. If I did not carpool, the round trip was usually 4 hours.
War Story - 1993, first drive to work in DC after relocation here. Got up really early, traffic heavy, then came to a full stop and go, looked up and saw the Potomac Mills shopping center sign, knew I still had 30 miles to go, looked down at my watch, 5:25am, then said to myself - "What did I just get myself into?"
“When I lived in Falls Church there wasn’t a Stirling.”
Yes there was, but it was and still is called Sterling.
We moved to Herndon, which is next to Sterling to the east, just so Mrs. VanShuyten can be close to work. It’s a nice suburb, and the wife can bike to work in 40 minutes. I can’t imagine commuting to DC from here, however.
The gang problem in Sterling is real, but has not crossed the county line yet. We’ve been here 10 years, and there has been an explosion of expensive housing to our west, which is bothersome, Most of those people work for local government contractors, but a large percent commute to DC. The commute will only get worse as more DC workers are drawn to the area by the new subway line.
The “depressed” Obama years saw massive increase in Fed gov’t and hence size/density of the DC and surrounding metroswamp...
Re: vanity plates.
They are super cheap in Virginia compared to many other states. So maybe part of it is that Virginians are more vain, but part of it is simple economics.
That would help explain it.
Or, at least in this case, I'm a poor reader!
“My experience driving a truck in and around northern Virginia revealed the most vanity plates in any state I’ve been in....”
Well, the well paid FedGov workers, usually northern invaders, really jumped on the vanity plates then the native Virginians felt like they had to keep up. Kind of like the Soviet/US mutually assured destruction.
If you wanted to see traffic you should have tried pulling a load from Boston, MA south on a Friday.
From around 1pm until 8pm every Friday it was rush hour, bumper to bumper, from Boston to Richmond, VA.
NO
FRIKKIN'
WAY
! ! ! ! !
Though I never ran that particular route, I've been on parts of all of it as part of another run.
I retired out of a sand can ... hauling sand for the frackers here in the tri-state area.
I've been a member of the pajama brigade for a year since 2012 ...
The underwear underground until 2015 ...
and presently a card carrying member of the naked nattering nabobs !
I miss the money and nothing else.
Too late, there is lots of gang activity in Herndon and now a new gang is trying to take over from the old gangs in Herndon... WAMU News.
I hope the situation improves under President Trump's leadership.
It was like Chantilly, a country crossroads without even a sign. There was a gas station built like a Dutch wind mill and that was it between Falls Church and Leesburg. We used to pick-a-nick, canoe and camp on Goose Creek from the river on up past the airport that Author Godfrey would fly out of.
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