Here's another to spark caution:

DC repaved I-395 from the 14th Street Bridge to the Case Bridge this past weekend. The new surface is great, but they messed up the striping. If you're in the second lane from the left as you enter DC, you can go either straight onto 14th Street or right onto I-395. But the lane-striping people put an extra broken line across part of the spot where the thru lane splits to the right; it makes it look like you're supposed to go straight. (I spotted it yesterday and intentionally drove in that lane today to get a closer look, and even though I knew it was there I got a little disoriented as to where I was supposed to go to the right.) Very dangerous spot.

Dr. Gridlock's colleagues from Monday's "Roads and Rails" discussion passed this on to the DC DOT, so hopefully it will be fixed soon, but in the meantime, watch out!

Methinks user "Jive" (a) does not live in the DC area (where rush hour often extends as late as 10:00 AM) and (b) needs to learn some manners. Who do you think you are?

Maybe we shouldn't call it "rush hour" because it's hard to "rush" anywhere at that time of day.

Hey, a slow ride on MARC was a heck of a lot better than no ride on MARC this morning. If not for the minor yet customary delay on the Camden Line this morning, I'd have missed a chance to bypass the Green Line's power troubles and resulting major delays. I'll a take a win, no matter how small, wherever I can these days.

While I don't agree with the tone, Jive is absolutely right in stating that it is erroneous to claim that traffic is better across the AL Bridge during rush hour when you drive across the bridge at 0940. Not only that, but yesterday's traffic was unusally light (father's day weekend/last day of school in Fairfax County/summer Monday/who knows). The backup returned this morning back to the Dulles Toll Road, and if a follow-up drive were performed, this report would not have been filed.

While I applaud that Dr. Gridlock did actually go out and drive a route (granted not during the best time to gauge the worst of the backup), I would question the reality of his snapshot assessment of this section of road. A good reader would have seen the time driven in the report and immediately dismissed it. Also, a good reporter would have gotten more than one piece of data before writing an objective observation, especially when the data collected is contrary to known conditions. In this case Dr. Gridlock really missed the boat, and should have refrained from reporting an anomolous observation, particularly when he chose to drive the route during a time that is not during the peak of rush hour. If he wanted to see what traffic was like, all he has to do is look in the cameras EVERY morning to see the backup from the bridge to the Toll Road. If he did this, he would understand that yesterday's observation was a complete FLUKE!!

Overall, this is just an example of BAD REPORTING!!! From my observations, that's pretty common with traffic and transit reporting in the Washington Post, so I should have expected this. If the Post wants accurate reporting of traffic and transit conditions, just ask the people that live through them everyday instead of sending out ignorant worker-bees without first-hand experience to report on singular observations. Soemone who writes about traffic and transit cannot make objective commentary based on one observation, and if the Post does not have the money to allow reporters to study this subject more thoroughly, they'd be better off not reporting on it at all.

In his section on the Legion Bridge, Dr. Gridlock never labeled 9:40am as "rush hour". He mentioned that he'd been through there before at that hour and seen solid lines of merging cars. He even suggested that he may have caught it at a decent pace due to a "quirk of timing". I don't think he was suggesting that the AL Bridge has gotten better overall.

Jive, can we reserve the name-calling for the playground at recess?

I sure hope they're not nearly finished with the Mixing Bowl. They still have yet to even pour footers for the HOV ramps let alone bring in the steel necessary to complete these ramps. Not only that, the signage is still nowhere near adequite with arrows pointing to wrong lanes and confusing/late signs that have already resulted in severe accidents, which have included fatalities.

"Nearing completion" I hope is an optomistic exaggeration, because from what I can see, there's still at least another year to go with this project. It's definitely a lot better than it was 10 years ago, but they're by no means finished.

(a) The HOV ramps at Springfield have been deferred indefinitely and are not currently on the construction schedule. They are also not part of the contract for the HOT lanes on the Beltway. So you shouldn't expect any more work in that regard any time soon; the remaining construction will consist of demolition of old bridges and final paving. Too bad, it would be great if they could eliminate the need to drive in the local lanes for a while on either side of the Beltway.

(b) Agree 100% on the inadequacy of signage, especially on southbound I-395 between Edsall Road and the Beltway. VDOT has taken a liking to smaller signs, but these are too small.

(c) The "Mixing Bowl" is the Pentagon interchange, not the Springfield Interchange, regardless of what the Washington Post wants you to believe. (See, e.g., http://www.roadstothefuture.com/VASCE-History/VASCE-Mixing-Bowl.htm and http://www.roadstothefuture.com/Mixing_Bowl.html for some info on, and some great photos of, the reconstruction of the Mixing Bowl.)

If Dr. Gridlock wasn't sure if Legion Bridge traffic was better, why didn't he just go out another day or check the cameras to verify his initial report. His little blurb is meaningless.

Hey Rich, do you know why the HOV interchange was dropped from the project? There are runups to ramps on both loops of the beltway...Are these going to end up being "ramps to nowhere" like the ones that were recently removed from the proposed I-95/I-70 interchange in Baltimore?

BTW, it's not the Washington Post who's propogating the misnamed interchange, it's VDOT (http://www.springfieldinterchange.com/before_after.asp). As far as I'm concerned, it's semantics. However, it's more common to hear people referring to the 395/495/95 interchange as "The Mixing Bowl" than the Pentagon interchange. I have to say, I've NEVER heard a traffic reporter or any other authority refer to the Pentagon interchange as "The Mixing Bowl." If reporters called that interchange The Mixing Bowl, I think there would be a lot of confused travelers. I think you're fighting a losing battle Rich over a name that is over 30 years old and no longer relavent to the Pentagon interchange.

I drive across the Legion Bridge four to five times a week (from VA to MD in the morning and the reverse in the evening). Usually I drive across around 9:30am or 10am in the morning, then again after 7pm in the evening.

Just in the last week, traffic volumes have gotten better; there have been virtually no delays on the inner loop both Monday and Friday morning last week, and then again yesterday morning as Dr. Gridlock correctly notes. (On the other hand, at 9:50am this morning the delays were back from somewhere before I got on at Georgetown Pike to the bridge.)

To set the record straight, 9:40am is often times the middle of rushhour in this area. (Of course, rushhour is a very outdated term nowadays with rushhours lasting as much as 8 hours of the day in this area, or, for some comparison, pretty much all day from 6am to 9pm in Los Angeles.) Last Thursday morning in the mist and rain, the inner loop of the beltway was backed up from SPRINGFIELD to the Legion Bridge well after 9am.

Rich, I too must say that I've never heard the Pentagon mix of freeways referred to as the Mixing Bowl. Perhaps this is because this is a label for that predates my move to the DC area seven years ago.

And one more comment on the AL Bridge and then I'll shut up: Overall, I think traffic flow has gotten marginally better in the mornings, although I attribute this to the decline in traffic volumes over the summer, not because of any new signage or adjustments to the project that MD SHA has made. Just wait until post-Labor Day in September and then the real reality will abruptly set in again. Hopefully I'll be telecommuting more than one day per week by then.

I'm not sure what road you're driving on xyv1027, but I drive across the American Leigon Bridge EVERY day coming all the way from Springfield, and aside from yesterday, traffic has been consistantly backup up to somewhere between the Toll Road and the Georgetown Pike. I usally go through the area between 8:30 and 9:00 AM, so it's possible that the tailend of the most intense traffic has improved, but what is universally considered the heart of "rush hour" has not changed dramatically over the past month.

In regards to the Mixing Bowl controversy, I think this nomenclature is being push by a select few who are living in the past. It's clear that the Pentagon area of 395 was once called The Mixing Bowl, but no one calls it that anymore, probably because it doesn't look like a mixing bowl. However the Springfield interchange does in fact look like a Mixing Bowl, and its a catchy name to refer to a very complicated interchange that people talk about frequently. Additionally, VDOT can put up a cute sign when the work is done like Atlanta did with its Spagetti Interchange.

Ah, the Mixing Bowl debate....

I have no doubt that the Pentagon interchange on I-395 was at one point referred to as the Mixing Bowl. The key phrase here is "referred to". At no point did FHWA, VDOT, or Arlington County ever officially name that interchange as the Mixing Bowl. No other entity has the power to officially name that interchange. Instead of being an official name, the term "Mixing Bowl" is a cultural reference.

Cultural references can change over time (neighborhood names are a great example). Regardless of how the cultural reference got changed, it has changed. Ask anyone in the area where the Mixing Bowl is, and the vast majority of people are going to say it is on the Beltway in Springfield. Like another poster said, not one traffic reporter is ever referring to the Pentagon Interchange as the Mixing Bowl...they are always referring to Springfield.

Some people think the Springfield Interchange was always the Mixing Bowl. Others know the name has shifted from one to another and might even curse out the traffic reporters for referring to the interchange in Springfield as the Mixing Bowl. But even they know exactly which interchange is being referred to. And of course, even VDOT refers to it as the Mixing Bowl. That is about as close to making it official as you can get.

So for those who like to point out this descrepency, it is a great historical fact that the Pentagon Interchange used to be the Mixing Bowl, but for those who insist on getting bent out of shape about other people using the wrong un-official name (and I'm not necessarily referring to anyone who posts here), its time to get over it.

I don't doubt that the use of "Mixing Bowl" for Springfield will fade, just as it has for the Pentagon, and probably for the same reason--the weaving and merging that plagued the Pentagon interchange is long gone, and the weaving and merging that plagued Springfield has recently disappeared as well with the completion of the ramps from the Outer Loop to southbound I-95 and to Old Keene Mill/Franconia Roads.

I wonder how many people would know what you meant if you said Shirley Highway instead of "I-95/395" or John Hanson Highway instead of US-50. (New Yorkers might prefer it, though. They seem to hate using road numbers.)

"do you know why the HOV interchange was dropped from the project?"

I'm not entirely certain, but I believe I read that it was partly a cost issue and partly an issue of there not being a final decision on building HOV/HOT lanes on the Beltway when the time came to make the decision on these ramps (it seems that the idea was that the HOV ramps were to be constructed IF HOV lanes were to be built on the Beltway).

The cost issue is a red herring. I read somewhere that the HOV ramps would have cost $80 million. That's not chump change, but compared to the overall cost of the project it's relatively minor. As for the other issue, I'm not sure why that matters either--why must HOV ramps connect only to HOV lanes?

I think a number of traffic reporters refer to roads by their names instead of numbers. John Hanson Highway, Shirley Highway, Richmond Highway, Baltimore Avenue, University Blvd, etc... are all used because they refer to specific stretches of highway that could be confused if referred to by route number. People who live or work in those areas know the names of their roads, and reporters use them frequently. However, Rich doesn't seem to know the names correctly since he proved his own point by not knowing that Shirley Highway only refers to I-395 between the Mixing Bowl and the 14th Street Bridge, not I-95/395.

Actually, the Shirley Highway is all of I-395 and I-95 from the Springfield Mixing Bowl to Woodbridge.

"The Henry G. Shirley Memorial Highway is the 17.3 miles of I-95 and I-395, from near Woodbridge, Virginia, to the south end of the 14th Street Bridge which carries I-395 into the District of Columbia."

http://www.roadstothefuture.com/Shirley_Highway.html

Related to earlier discussion of the Mixing Bowl...see the section entitled: "Springfield Interchange" - Not "Mixing Bowl" on the same webpage.

"not knowing that Shirley Highway only refers to I-395 between the Mixing Bowl and the 14th Street Bridge, not I-95/395."

Wrong. The Henry G. Shirley Memorial Highway runs from the US-1 interchange just north of Woodbridge to the south end of the 14th Street Bridge, a total distance of 17.3 miles. The road, which was originally numbered VA-350, was a bypass for US-1. The southern end was at the exit that is now Exit 161 (if you're going south, it's the left-hand exit from the local lanes).

I-95 south of there was opened in 1964; because there was already an existing highway from Woodbridge north, the I-95 designation replaced the VA-350 designation for the length of Shirley Highway and beyond into DC. The northern part of that (inside the Beltway) was later renumbered I-395 when I-95 through DC was deleted, but that didn't affect the overall honorific Shirley Highway (as named highways have been de-emphasized per federal guidelines anyway).

I was typing my post when the phone rang and so Woodley Park beat me to it :-) Thanks for the support (insofar as Tibalt said I was wrong).

Sorry Rich :)

No, don't apologize, I appreciate it :-)

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