Traffic: DCs Largest Import

Unlike a large number of government workers, my plans for the next two weeks do not include time off (other than Christmas Day and New Year's Day, both grudgingly given me by my employer.) And even though it's only Tuesday, I can tell that these two weeks, which one would think would be some of the easiest commutes of the year, are in fact going to be some of the worst.

Normally, Tim and I get up at half past not quite dawn, make our way to the commuter lot where a long line of people await to hop in our car, bringing us up to the requisite three persons required for the HOV lanes which in turn scoot us around all the general purpose commuter traffic. This week things aren't going so smoothly.

First, it's The Week of Tim. TWoT is when Tim takes a week off to relax, recuperate and do stuff around the house. Since he does not suffer from Job ADD like I do, he's been with his company since we moved here and not recieves so much vacation each year that unless I just quit my job entirely, we'll never both have the same amount of time off where we could go somewhere, so he might as well use some of the time doing whatever he likes. I have no issues with TWoT and, in fact, encourage it. Now, normally TWoT occurs the week of Thanksgiving, but due to his grueling schedule at work, it got postponed to this week. So it's just me getting up and heading to the lot, meaning I need two slugs, not just one.

Second, it seems as if all the people who normally slug have taken vacation. I've been getting to the lot about 20 minutes later than usual (at which point on a normal week you'd be seriously lucky to find a parking spot if you were hoping to park and ride) and from the number of cars parked, you'd think I was there 30 minutes earlier. And so I sit in the incredibly long line of cars waiting to pick up slugs for another 20 minutes.

You'd think (or at least, I would) that with the dearth of commuters that maybe I could just drive myself in and not worry about grabbing carpoolers. Oh how wrong you'd be! The main lanes are still jammed - perhaps even a bit more jammed than usual - and since I'm guessing that main lane commuting has decreased the same way the slug lines have, all those cars jamming up the roads? They're people going hither and yon for the holidays who somehow mistakenly thought that if they could hit the DC area before 7 in the morning that they'd get through with no issues.

And so here follows my PSA for anyone thinking to drive through the DC area on their way to somewhere else: The only time that traffic is remotely reasonable on a weekday is between 10 am and 2 pm and between 8 pm and 4 am. Those are great times to zip yourselves through our area. But morning rush really begins right around 4:30 am and continues until about 9:30. Evening rush? Starts at 2:30 and goes until around 7 or 7:30. And heaven help you if there are accidents. All bets are off on Friday evenings. And holidays or 3-day weekends are unpredictable (but plan on excessively heavy, since not only is everyone trying to go hither and yon through this area, but everyone who lives here is actually also trying to hither and yon so the roads, where are at capacity with normal traffic are just, well, full.)

Which makes me wonder what my option really should be tomorrow - do I brave the back roads on my own and just hope or do I continue to sit and hope for slugs? I'm at a loss. And really, if I had any say in what we imported around here, I'd much rather we went for something like exotic cheese.