No, really. What the holy hell is going on in Virginia? We had dinner with the charming and insanely nice OldNFO last night (thank you, good sir, for the fine dining and excellent company!), and upon leaving the restaurant, were directed to our way home via GPS to the first leg of our trip, getting on a state highway.
Except that the ramp they wanted us to go up was no longer a highway entrance, it was an exit.
Yes, you heard that right. They change the direction of a ramp off the highway depending on the time of day. Apparently at certain times it lets people off the highway, at other times it lets people on the highway. I've been all over the US and never seen something like this, probably because it's f**king retarded. Sure, for the locals that know the ins-and-outs I'm sure it works, but for anyone turning around off the highway, or stopping off for a bite to eat, or anyone not intimately familiar with the area it turns a quick stop off the highway into a highly annoying detour.
And it gets better - we find an alternate route, travel ~ 15 miles on a secondary road to I-95 - to find the on-ramp to I-95 closed. Not because of an accident. Not because of road work. Apparently this is more of the VA DOT's traffic control - prevent access to a major highway at 9:00 at night so that... um... I'm trying to think why this is a good idea. Oh, wait, it's not - especially because it routed us off the secondary highway through a congested commercial zone where we promptly got right on I-95. If the design was supposed to keep us off the highway, it failed miserably.
It did manage to make me turn bright crimson with rage, though, and think of several hundred creative things I'd like to do to the filthy sadist responsible...
That is all.
21 comments:
It's a TRAP!!
If it's any consolation (which I doubt, since it doesn't help you out any) I've never seen this anywhere else in Virginia - it's only around DC.
Everything about traffic around DC is fubar'd. I've seen streets that are one way at certain times of day, and one way in the other direction at other times.
I only drive up there when absolutely necessary. I'm sure you realize why.
Yes, driving in Northern Virginia can be maddening. And now with both the new metro rail and fast lanes projects impacting the beltway in nearly identical places, intimate knowledge of the secondary roads is vital. Just keep in mind that as bad as NoVA is, DC is actually worse.
That being said, though it is has been years since I drove in Boston I don't remember it being any glory in modern road transportation. Do they still do that thing where 10 lanes get funnelled down to 2 to go under the river?
Welcome to the party pal.
VADOT = pod people
VA traffic police = (generally) idiots. don't speed in Virginia...or you might end up in jail.
Sounds like you were being directed onto the HOV lanes for some reason. It can be confusing if you've never experienced it. Or if you have, sometimes, too.
Not sure what the hell they were doing at 2100 to cause you to have to detour like that. Where was it, so I can mark it down as a "you can't get there from here" location?
Sounds like you were near Tyson's Corner.
That specific exit/entrance is a nuts. I know of two like that on Rt 66.
GPS's just can't keep up with the changes either.
BTW. Avoid "The Mixing Bowl"...
My favorite WTF highway moment was the first time I went driving in Montreal. Apparently during rush hour the six lane highway (3 lanes in each direction, barrier in the middle) goes from a 3&3 configuration to a 4&2 configuration. The extra lane is just for buses, but that means that you have coach buses using the on-ramps as exits and vice versa. I almost had heart attack when I was passed by a bus going the "wrong way" on an on-ramp.
66? Maybe something like th eStringfellow Rd. entrance/exit? Tea, that is nuts. One of the many reasons I avoid 66 like the plague.
The mixing bowl is not too bad. Once you understand that if you are travelling north you need to be in the left hand lanes to go east on the beltway, and the right hand lanes to go west...and I have YET to figure out where all of the friggin' onramps are coming from. Thank the Lord I don't have to go that far to go to work...
I've lived in NoVa since 1960 an NEVER seen anything as bad in those 41 years. This is the third major renovation of the Springfield interchange and the 2nd at the Route 7/123/Tysons Corner area. Also "improving" most interchanges to allow for "Hot Lanes" on the Beltway. Don't ask me what they are. VDOT, FedDOT and local pols all seem to have a different idea of what Hot Lanes will be used for.
Always suspected VDOT was heavy into recreational drug use.
To throw in a tourist with an out of date GPS is cruel and unusual punishment. Drink heavily and take Metro.
Jay G expecting government planning bees to make sense ... It'd be kind of cute if it weren't so weird
@OldWindways: I saw those signs in Montreal last month and I was flabbergasted. Thankfully I didn't have an encounter with a wrong way bus. The Tappan Zee bridge does this, but they actually move the barriers. I actually crossed at exactly the right time once and saw the giant barrier-mover; it was awesome.
I'm guessing you've never had the "pleasure" of driving I-5 in the Seattle, WA area?
In DC, 15th Street NW is one-way for parts of it (north bound). In the afternoon, commuter traffic drives south (against the painted signs, without the usual traffic signs and traffic lights because the they face in the wrong direction).
In the past in St. Louis, Mo. the highway coming out of the city into the suburban area had a middle lane that changed direction to get people into the city in the morning and reversed to get them out at quitting time. Dont know if its still used.
I came upon some fun reversible lanes in Louisville KY back in 99 or so. During one part of its switch you can either drive or park in the lane. Driving 35-40 down the road and coming upon a parked car was upsetting to say the least.
When Jimmy Carter thought that High Occupancy Vehicle Lanes would be a "Good Idea", they started out as HOV-4,but the last time I came near D.C. I saw that they are down to HOV-2. But I still remember being stuck on the Beltway one Friday evening for 4 hours in the early '80s, riding my clutch in my old Dodge Omni, and looking over to the HOV lanes and thinking how easy it would be to land planes on it because it was EMPTY!
Lord Jim,
That would be Bardstown Road in Louisville, KY. It's a major artery going into downtown, but because all the buildings on it are historical (so they can't widen it), it's permanently stuck at 4 lanes wide - and since it's filled with lots of shops on either side in said old buildings, they need parking desperately. So, from 7-9 AM, there is no parking, two lanes head in, one heads out, and there's a center turn lane. At 9, it shifts to 1 each way, with the outside lanes being parking. You must have hit it right at turnover. (Or at the 4-6 time slot, when the 2-turn-1 arrangement reverses.)
DOT detours and strange decisions are all over the place! A common one I see all the time is when they block a lane for roadwork during a busy time of day causing a traffic jam and they aren't even working on the road! Why close the lane? I think driving safety would be improved measurably if they would keep their lane closures restricted to evening hours.
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