How Often Did Wilson Drive Himself?
Apr 14th, 2007 by Alex
I hate crossing the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, especially when there’s no other way to go. I was heading to Alexandria last night and got to sit in the mixing bowl for 20-30 minutes before crossing into Virginia. Took 20 minutes to go 25 miles on the Parkway and another hour in stop-and-go traffic for 3 miles before crossing the bridge. After the bridge, it was another 3 minutes to my destination. For those fortunately enough not to have to drive around DC, this is typical (if not better than average).
While he was President, Mr. Wilson reportedly spent an average of two hours a day riding in his automobile to relax, or to “loosen his mind from the problems before him.”
He clearly was riding, not driving; probably with the assistance of a motorcade to keep everything moving. Driving on the Beltway drives people mad over variable periods of time.
I saw a lot of construction as I crossed. They’re adding new spans and replacing the old, yielding four additional lanes. The project is slated to finish in 2008 but I seriously doubt that twelve lanes will be any more effective at lightening congestion than eight, especially since traffic tends to move once you’re on the bridge.
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Well, he probably didn’t have to worry about the beltway back then
Actually, I find driving CAN be relaxing, if you can find a nice long stretch of country road absent of other drivers.
in reality, much of the issue is that currently the beltway bottlenecks at the bridge as the existing bridges are only 3 lanes each. The main road on either side is 4 lanes. Upon completion of construction, there will be 4 through lanes in each direction, thus eliminating the bottleneck and there will be an additional 2 or 3 “express” lanes for through traffic that will bypass the very busy exists on either side of the bridge. The reason for 2 or 3 lanes is that there is potentially going to be a beltway loop metrorail in the future and one of the lanes would be a railway. Additional information can be found at the following website: http://www.wilsonbridge.com. As for whether or not Wilson drove himself, it is almost certain that he would not find today’s traffic relaxing.
kpm: The problem as I see it has little to do with the bridge itself. It’s more than 495 and 295 meet, forcing 4-5 lanes to merge into 2-3. Once on the bridge everything is fine, but even if it were flat land the same merging problems would occur. A Beltway-loop metrorail, now that would be something. The brown line, eh?