The District-Maryland-Virginia (DMV) region suffers from a paralysis. Bridge-building paralysis, specifically.
In the year 2023, the region’s top traffic bottlenecks stem from a lack of bridges and options to cross water. Don’t let any local politician fool you. The issue is no new bridges. Getting across a river is like crossing a gauntlet for millions of travelers. Nearly every single day – even weekends – thousands of Marylanders (mainly MoCo residents but others as well, including some coming from Frederick) are wasting dozens of hours sitting in traffic due to crushing bottlenecks that occur because of the lack of bridges and options to cross the Potomac River.
The American Legion Bridge opened in 1962. The current version of the Chain Bridge, connecting upper NW DC and McLean, VA, was last updated in 1982 but it sits on pillars that are originally constructed for that bridge span from the 1870s. We haven’t had a new Potomac River crossing on the western side of Montgomery County, connecting us to Virginia for faster transit and easier movement of people and goods, in over 60 years.
The problem of getting people and cars over a river extends further south as well. The Rappahannock River in Fredericksburg, VA is a constant source of traffic. The bottleneck from I-95 and even Route 1 simply to cross a river is present on Saturday, Sunday, Monday at 2 PM, or Friday at 9 AM. It almost does not matter what time you hit the area – traffic is omnipresent. Summer, winter, holiday or not.
The “DMV” region has and will continue to have a paralysis problem as long as the status quo continues. In the event of an actual emergency necessitating evacuation or even just a bad accident, the beltway basically shuts down and I-95 is grid-locked. Any attempt to leave this area and head to points south will simply not exist.
You will be trapped on the “reservation” while the privileged few are airlifted to where they need to go.
