HOV Lanes Closed Friday

We'll see how this works out. Could create afternoon problems.
Bob

HOV Lanes Closed Friday, Nov. 10 Lanes Reserved for bus convoy to National Museum of the Marine Corps Ceremony

The Virginia Department of Transportation and Virginia State Police will close the I-95/395 HOV lanes from the 14th Street Bridge to Route 234 in Dumfries from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 10. The HOV lanes will be reserved for several hundred buses transporting guests from both the Stafford Regional Airport and Pentagon to the dedication event for the National Museum of the Marine Corps, located at Route 1 and Joplin Road in Prince William County.

http://virginiadot.org/news/newsrelease.asp?ID=NOVA-NR06-44



Message signs along I-95/395 and Route 1 will inform motorists that the HOV lanes will be closed on Veteran’s Day. Normally the HOV lanes would be open to all traffic on Friday because it is a federal holiday.

# #

Agreed- how does this make any sense?

Merlin

Thousands of people work on Friday.

And tens of thousands will be on the highway Friday pm, including a whole bunch of shoppers, workers, and long distance cars. This could blow up in VDOTs face.

I agree that it makes no sense, but not necessarily for the reason pondered.

The Secret Service, who are really the ones who request the HOV closures for the President, have already shown an interest in not disrupting traffic during hours that would inconvenience large numbers of commuters - so I think that postulation is out.

The real problem is that VDOT is closing the HOV for 12 hours!!! Now... we've all sat in some pretty bad traffic but the last nightmare commute I had did not even take a quarter of that duration(pretty close though).

The Marine Corps Birthday Ceremony will be in Arlington, VA at 10:00 AM. So the few buses coming up from Stafford on the 10th would have no problem sharing the HOV. (Most personnel would arrive on the 9th and be squared away already.)

The dedication ceremony in Quantico, VA will be at 1:00 PM - with the next event being the Birthday Ball in Falls Church, VA at 6:30 PM.

If dedication and viewing were from 1:00 - 4:00 PM there would be plenty of time to traverse, with minimal abatement, from Quantico to Falls Church in 2.5 hrs.

If the dedication and various other ceremonies surrounding the Corps events necessitated the action of closing the HOV lanes for a full week I would be a strong advocate of said action.

That being said... it's not necessary in this case.

This simply wasn't thought out very well. VDOT took the easy road not the socially conscious road.

I know it's a Federal holiday, but there will still be a ton of people on the road traveling, shopping, or like me, heading to work. I live off the 610 and I don't want to sit in traffic for 2-3 hours in the morning just to come to work and have to turn around and do it again in the afternoon. Realistically, could the delays during the morning and evening traffic be that bad?