Driving No Fun Anymore
Bensblurb # 585 1/15/11
Driving around no fun anymore (and not of much interest except to locals in Va. Sorry, Texas)
Is there nothing we I-95 users can do to alleviate its virtually constant traffic jams in our area? Probably.
The consequences? Not only wasted, high-priced gasoline, but late or missed daytime appointments with physicians in Fredericksburg or Woodbridge, for example.
To wit, my wife’s physicians office she had been visiting for over a decade told her as 2011 began to find someone else, since she had been late for an appointment and then missed the next one altogether, simply because I-95 was choked--in mid-afternoon.
So we are shopping for another doc in North Stafford. There aren’t very many. Help may be on the way, with the opening last year of the Stafford Hospital not far down the road. Maybe I-95’s area jams are a reason why two new urgent care facilities have opened in recent months on Garrisonville Road, although we already had three of them there.
An answer that I-95 optimists might give for the perpetual gridlock would be the advertised coming Hot Lanes in the middle of the Interstate. It’s said they will extend down to Fredericksburg. Big deal. And how many entry points would be allocated to Stafford County interchanges? One if we’re lucky, I’d guess. And when? Best guess would be shortly after the Redskins win another Super Bowl.
Sarcastic? No, realistic. Things here would be much better now if several years ago that proposed I-95 bypass from the Stafford Airport interchange to west of Fredericksburg on Route 3 hadn’t been vetoed by NIMBY and local preservationist protestors. Overcome them and we’d see road progress. They’re why improvement of the Falmouth light intersection is taking so long.
Back when I-95 was 4-lanes young, and sleepy Stafford County was home to only 40,000 souls, commuting to D.C. was a breeze. It was like that when I first moved to sleepy Aquia Harbour in 1978. Our vanpool would leave the Harbour parking lot about 6:30 AM and reliably arrive at USDA’s South Building in less than an hour and a half. Those were the good old days.
Garrisonville road was only two lanes and one stoplight, at the U.S. 1 intersection. Now it’s beginning to resemble the backups typical of Route 3 around Central Park.
Trying to navigate a good, non-I-95 course down to Fredericksburg is fraught with danger, too. Driving down U.S. 1 can take even longer because of its many stoplights. Some pioneering souls take Sheldon Shop Road from Garrisonville Road and thence onto Mountain View, and thence...who knows? A similar spaghetti-like path from North Stafford east of I-95 might incorporate Brooke Road with a hookup to Route 3 east of Fredericksburg. Again, lots of luck.
If you live near Garrisonville Road, you can judge I-95 backups by crossing over the Jessica Cheney Bridge above I-95 and observing the situation. But caution: Southbound, a jam just beyond the bridge can be deceptive. It often clears before the Courthouse Road exit. Alas, “often” won’t do in case you must be somewhere on time.
Best advice: Move elsewhere, or retire--the latter of which has worked just fine for me.
Ben Blankenship is a career journalist and a resident of Aquia Harbour. Reach him at Benblanken@aol.com".
Driving around no fun anymore (and not of much interest except to locals in Va. Sorry, Texas)
Is there nothing we I-95 users can do to alleviate its virtually constant traffic jams in our area? Probably.
The consequences? Not only wasted, high-priced gasoline, but late or missed daytime appointments with physicians in Fredericksburg or Woodbridge, for example.
To wit, my wife’s physicians office she had been visiting for over a decade told her as 2011 began to find someone else, since she had been late for an appointment and then missed the next one altogether, simply because I-95 was choked--in mid-afternoon.
So we are shopping for another doc in North Stafford. There aren’t very many. Help may be on the way, with the opening last year of the Stafford Hospital not far down the road. Maybe I-95’s area jams are a reason why two new urgent care facilities have opened in recent months on Garrisonville Road, although we already had three of them there.
An answer that I-95 optimists might give for the perpetual gridlock would be the advertised coming Hot Lanes in the middle of the Interstate. It’s said they will extend down to Fredericksburg. Big deal. And how many entry points would be allocated to Stafford County interchanges? One if we’re lucky, I’d guess. And when? Best guess would be shortly after the Redskins win another Super Bowl.
Sarcastic? No, realistic. Things here would be much better now if several years ago that proposed I-95 bypass from the Stafford Airport interchange to west of Fredericksburg on Route 3 hadn’t been vetoed by NIMBY and local preservationist protestors. Overcome them and we’d see road progress. They’re why improvement of the Falmouth light intersection is taking so long.
Back when I-95 was 4-lanes young, and sleepy Stafford County was home to only 40,000 souls, commuting to D.C. was a breeze. It was like that when I first moved to sleepy Aquia Harbour in 1978. Our vanpool would leave the Harbour parking lot about 6:30 AM and reliably arrive at USDA’s South Building in less than an hour and a half. Those were the good old days.
Garrisonville road was only two lanes and one stoplight, at the U.S. 1 intersection. Now it’s beginning to resemble the backups typical of Route 3 around Central Park.
Trying to navigate a good, non-I-95 course down to Fredericksburg is fraught with danger, too. Driving down U.S. 1 can take even longer because of its many stoplights. Some pioneering souls take Sheldon Shop Road from Garrisonville Road and thence onto Mountain View, and thence...who knows? A similar spaghetti-like path from North Stafford east of I-95 might incorporate Brooke Road with a hookup to Route 3 east of Fredericksburg. Again, lots of luck.
If you live near Garrisonville Road, you can judge I-95 backups by crossing over the Jessica Cheney Bridge above I-95 and observing the situation. But caution: Southbound, a jam just beyond the bridge can be deceptive. It often clears before the Courthouse Road exit. Alas, “often” won’t do in case you must be somewhere on time.
Best advice: Move elsewhere, or retire--the latter of which has worked just fine for me.
Ben Blankenship is a career journalist and a resident of Aquia Harbour. Reach him at Benblanken@aol.com".
posted by Ben Blankenship at
9:08 AM
