Believe it or not, traffic is getting worse in the D.C. region

September 7, 2009 12:36 am

NO, it is not your imagination. Traffic really is worse than it was six months ago.

Real-time traffic information provider INRIX found congestion in most U.S. cities stayed level or shrank this year, growing nationwide at only 0.5 percent. That's not surprising, given the recession, high unemployment and a downward trend in vehicle miles driven. Washington, of course, was an exception. Despite all of these factors, traffic in the D.C. area got 9 percent worse.

Another way D.C. is different: The worst travel hour nationally is Friday from 5 to 6 p.m., but in Washington it's Thursday night from 5 to 6.

INRIX considers Washington the fourth-most-congested city in the nation for the first six months of 2009, after Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, in that order. It beat Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Seattle. As a relative of mine recently quipped, we're going to have to change the state motto to "Virginia Is for Lovers and People Who Love Traffic."

Dear Kelly: Why does the traffic light at Salem Fields Boulevard and Gordon Road immediately turn green when a vehicle approaches in the right-turn lane of Salem Fields Boulevard? This happens around 7 a.m. weekdays, when a vehicle is able to make that right turn on red with little delay.

--Betty Wheeler, Spotsylvania

Two lanes exit Salem Fields Boulevard at Gordon Road, wrote Shawn Beavon, VDOT traffic signal technician manager, in an e-mail answer to your question. The right lane is for vehicles making right turns only.

In that lane, the vehicle detector has a timer. This timer is set with a small delay, which prevents the traffic signal from turning green every time a vehicle rolls up to the right-turn lane's stop bar, stopping all traffic on Gordon Road.

After you sent in your question, VDOT visited this signal to see if the timer on the vehicle detector needed to be adjusted. It did, Beavon said. The timer has been adjusted so a vehicle turning right on red from Salem Fields won't disrupt traffic on Gordon Road as often, Beavon wrote.

Kelly Hannon is The Free Lance-Star's transportation reporter. If you have questions, send them to Getting There, c/o The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401; or you may fill out the Getting There form on the Web at fredericksburg.com.