HOV Lanes Closed Friday

We are working on a story, but I'm trying to find some folks who were caught in the mess...Anyone? 202/334-4521

Eric, turn on the news or check the traffic cameras. Are you serious? They closed HOV on a Friday so a hundred or so busses could go unimpeded to Quantico and back? I saw Marine one fly in to Quantico, so I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with the President using 95 HOV lanes. Public roads closed for a private dedication. C'mon, you guys should be all over this.

Hooch

I drove up around 2 p.m. and southbound 395 was PACKED and there was no one at all moving on HOV (except for some guys who looked to be blocking some of the openings along the railings).

What amazes me about HOV is that DOT really doesn't seem to anticipate traffic issues during weekends. For example, it doesn't matter if there is a football game, a marathon or whatever with the bulk of drivers going into the city -- the HOV will be set for only southbound in the morning. I would think that DOT could better evaluate major events on the non-regular HOV usage times and adjust accordingly. In this instance, even if there was a need to transport a number of busses, given the hours of the event they probably would not have had to restrict anyone at all and still been able to fly down south with no problem.

what "merge" are you talking about? Where the buses join the main lines? Quantico or Pentagon? Which traffic cam site are you using?

Go look at the traffic cams, you can see the buses zooming down the HOV - I don't think they've gotten to the merge yet... But they do have two-way traffic on the HOV.