Drove from Alexandria to Goochland via 95 south Friday morning around 6 AM. Traffic was heavier than I thought it would be, but we never had any slowdowns. The rain was heavy at times, but it didn't have any effect on traffic. As usual things broke up past Fredericksburg and it was clear sailing from there.

Saturday we drove from Goochland to Staunton and back to see a play and 64 was nearly empty at times.

Monday around 1030 we left Goochland and headed back to Alexandria. 95 was crowded, but again, we never experienced any stoppages. The heavy rain and mist thrown up by cars cut visibility to almost nothing at times. The average speed fluctuated from as low as 50 during the heaviest rain to 70 and beyond for some people when the rain broke up.

All in all, driving was the least of our worries over the holiday, which is a nice change.

My mother and father live near Fairfax City. The Beltway from Van Dorn Street to 236 was flowing very well on Sunday afternoon, no doubt helped by the fact that the Redskins game went into overtime and kept folks off the roads a little bit longer. :-)

LAST NIGHT (Tuesday) on the way home from work the Beltway was a MESS from Springfield heading east to Van Dorn (and presumably on to the Wilson Bridge). Absolute standstill across all six lanes. I assume it was a mix of Christmas travellers who aren't familiar with the traffic patterns at the Wilson Bridge, local drivers who are impatient with the out-of-towners, people who slow down going up the slope on the new bridge....

Drove up to Long Island NY on Friday night. Left at 11:00 pm, and had no traffic difficulties, though it poured rain the whole way, which made driving more stressful. Total driving time of 5 hours (including several stops to walk around and wake up). Came home yesterday, leaving at noon, and suffered through terrible traffic in NJ (including a 30 mile backup on the Turnpike caused by an overturned tractor trailer). By the time I made it through Delaware to Maryland, I was not feeling very charitable towards Delaware. Those tolls simply create enormous backups. EZ-Pass doesn't help, and even scooting around it from the Newark exit would not save any time. It was literally stop and go from the NJ side of the Delaware Bridge to the Delaware tolls. It was very frustrating to see at least one toll lane closed. Total driving time coming home was over 8 hours.

West Enders in Alexandria got the best Christmas present ever: Fairfax County FINALLY put in a concrete barrier divider on Beauregard Street between N. Chambliss and Little River Turnpike (VA-236). I expect the traffic backups will lessen in this area, known for nightmarish backups as people block lanes trying to make left turns out of or into the 7-Eleven, Sunoco, Arbys, etc. Hallelujiah. Now people can only make right turns. The only thing lacking now is timing the lights at N. Chambliss with the light at 236, as well as putting a light on Lincolnia/N Chambliss so that while people rot on Beauregard for traffic ahead of them to move, the traffic coming off Lincolnia/N Chambliss doesn't hog up the scarce space that does open once Beauregard gets the green up at Little River. The lights now are horribly mistimed, and the length of road there is horribly short for the amount of traffic attempting to turn left onto Little River/Duke. Shorten the light on Little River for goodness sake. As it is they get like 2 to 3 minutes of green, while Beauregard gets 30 seconds to clear out all the backlog, most of it trying to get to 395's ramps. The concrete barrier will help smooth things, but there's another step or two to go before the whole mess becomes safer for both drivers and pedestrians in the area.

It's the small projects that make the difference sometimes...I wish government would keep that in mind.

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Not so long ago, Delaware was little more than a 12 minute interlude between MD and NJ. Over the past year, the construction, tolls and general congestion has made that state the worst part of our trips back and forth from the NY area. It always (no matter what time of day/day of week) takes at least 45 minutes, and sometimes much more. The construction signage causes everyone to slow down to a crawl, despite all lanes often being open (they should instead change the signs to say, "all lanes through" or something to get people to keep up their speed) and the tolls are jammed for miles because of non-EZPassers. Very frustrating. Otherwise, everything else on our trip went well.

I travel home from Baltimore to Western Virginia via I-70 to Frederick and then south on 340. The final few miles of the trip on I-70 are AWFUL. Construction, poor merge planning, lane endings. It's a perfect storm of traffic nightmares. And it looks like all the construction on I-70 isn't even adding a lane to the inexplicably two-laned road. Does anyone know what the project is supposed to accomplish?

Hi Dr. Gridlock. I currently live in Largo, MD but my family is considering moving to a bigger place and farther out because of home prices. Our choices are Hanover,MD near Arundel Mills or Accokeek, MD. Can you provide some guidance on the commutes to and from DC for both locations?

We left for Roanoke around noon on the 23rd and encountered very little traffic. Almost like there wasn't anyone on the road.

We came back from Roanoke around 3 p.m. on the 24th (a lot of family, very little time) and save for seeing Santa Claus in a yellow Corvette with South Carolina license plates on I-81, nothing eventful.

Seems I-81 is the smart way to travel, even for old Saint Nick on his busiest travel day (I tried to get a picture of Mr. Claus, but can't tell if it came out).

Drove up to Fairfield CT on Saturday 12/23. Left DC around 10:30 am. Took me close to 8 hours, due mostly to delays at the malls in Delaware -- and that was with the use of the I-295 bypass in south Jersey. My own fault for leaving mid-morning.

Same drive took under 5 hours leaving at 7 am on 12/27.

the drive is a cakewalk if you leave early enough.

I have traveled from DC to NJ for years using the 95 to 695 to 83 to 81 to 78 route. This bypass of Delaware and the NJ Turnpike used to be little known and reliably traffic-free. It adds a few miles to the trip but is almost as fast, eliminating the waits at tolls and the common back-ups in DE. On December 26, I returned by this route leaving NJ around noon. The merge from route 78 West to 81 South was backed up for miles, costing us over an hour. This is a four to two lane merge but has never been a problem over the past 15 years. I don't know how to account for this year's delay (saw no accidents) but it was an ominous trend. If too many people are now aware of this route, it may be time to find another bypass...