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Journals
July 21,1997
George Washington Memorial Parkway lives up to its name
So, like, there's this big accident on the GDub and traffic is backed up from the Roosevelt Bridge to the Chain Bridge (10 miles, roughly). The Southbound lanes are closed before the Roosevelt and they had opened the Key early to take the traffic. Ten miles later, after I pass the Chain Bridge, on the other side (the backed up side, I'm zipping along here), I notice one of those electric signs owned by the park police. What does it say? GWMP UNDER CONSTRUCTION. DELAYS ARE POSSIBLE. Now, tell me, if you're going to CLOSE the road, why not use the sign to warn people and divert some of that traffic to the Chain Bridge, before they get stuck in a 10 mile long jam? I'd would have been SCREAMING if I'd been caught in that unaware when it was totally unnecessary. Some poor schmuck's car keeled over further blocking things up. (there's no shoulder) Ironically, the sign that all these people had to creep past says ENJOY THE RIDE. Hah.
I love it here. Really.
In addition to that, there's a big hole on the 395 near the 12th Street exit. It's been there since Saturday. It's backing up traffic, even when it's NOT rush hour. This is a piece of road that thousands of cars pass over daily, and they can't manage to slap some tar on it so that people aren't surprised into rear-ending someone when the person in front of them slams on their brakes when they realize just how big that hole is and that the "steel plates" they were warned about actually increase the drop off into the latter half of the hole. I guess DC is waiting for that tar to come COD since they have no credit whatsoever.
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