(The following article by J. Andrew Curliss was posted on the Charlotte News & Observer website on October 4.)
WOODBRIDGE, VA. — The people who live in the suburbs along Interstate 95 in northern Virginia face one of the nation’s most notorious commutes.
Most days, as hundreds of thousands make their way to and from the Pentagon, downtown Washington and glassy towers in Arlington, the choked freeway can add hours to what could be a half-hour trip.
Taxpayers spent $127 million in 1992 on an alternative: a regional rail line called the Virginia Railway Express.
The service runs along the I-95 and U.S. 1 corridor north from Fredericksburg, Va., for about 60 miles into the District of Columbia, offering a less-hectic trip to the city and back home.
More than 300,000 vehicles clog I-95 here each day. But last year, about 15,000 people a day rode the Virginia Railway Express — roughly the same ridership the Triangle Transit Authority predicts if its system starts running in late 2008.
The vast number of people use cars, some choosing to ride with strangers instead of on the rail. They wait in lines across the region as part of happenstance car pools, called “slugging,” that secure access to high-occupancy-vehicle lanes.
“I can’t say it enough,” said Mark Roeber, a spokesman for the Virginia Railway Express. “It is very, very hard to get Americans out of their cars. There is a love affair with the automobile.”
The level of rail use in suburban Virginia is typical of rail ridership in the nation’s fastest-growing areas in the South and West, areas much larger than the Triangle with more traffic congestion and longer commutes.
In other cities, traffic aggravation still has not been enough to force drivers onto rail systems in any large quantity, especially when compared with those who stay behind the wheel, a review of national ridership data shows.
Organized hitchhiking
That’s evident amid the cul-de-sacs and strip shopping centers of northern Virginia, which feed a dense metroplex of hundreds of thousands of workers, many tied to the federal government.
The trains, which share tracks with CSX and Norfolk Southern trains, stop at five stations of the district’s Metro subway system. The railway also has a leg running eastward into the district from suburban Manassas, Va.
The scramble to work begins before dawn, when many already are clogging I-95 as it slices through pines toward Washington. By the time the sun rose above the trees one midsummer day about 6:15 a.m., northbound traffic on I-95 was at a near-standstill.
“It’s unreal, but it’s like this every day,” said John Bryant, a defense contractor who lives near Woodbridge, 25 miles south of the district.
He has tried every available option: bus, car pool, driving alone. He has also tried the rail, where trains come by every 20 minutes during the rush hour.
He prefers slugging, the informal carpooling method that has him waiting in a parking lot to be scooped up by a lone driver already headed in his direction. Drivers collect enough people to gain access to faster-moving HOV lanes. Riders get a free trip into town.
Bryant and more than a dozen others interviewed cited a variety of reasons not to ride the train: cost of tickets, worries about train delays, the fear of missing the train and having to wait longer, and overall inconvenience. Tickets cost $80 to $200 a month depending on the length of trip, though many employers (including the federal government) subsidize up to half that.
“If you need to be flexible at all,” said Curtis Davis, a Pentagon worker who once lived in Fayetteville, “then the train isn’t the way to go.”
The scene at I-95 near the huge Potomac Mills shopping mall in Woodbridge was dizzying. By 8:15 a.m., a parking lot with more than 2,500 spaces was mostly full.
Workers walked quickly to queue in makeshift lines for “slug” rides into town. Express buses to the district came by every 15 minutes, some packed. Van pools sped off with groups of workers.
Making life better
About two miles away, Virginia Railway Express trains were regularly pulling into the Woodbridge station, a midway stop on the trip north to Union Station, blocks from the U.S. Capitol. By 8:28 a.m., when one of the last trains of the morning stopped, about 20 riders hopped on.
Beside the rail station, a 700-space parking deck was about half full. A surface parking lot next to it was nearly empty.
All the passengers found seats, though the cars were nearly full from riders who boarded at points farther south.
It was quiet on board. Several passengers clicked away on laptop computers. Others read newspapers or books, sipping coffee. Many slept.
Those who rode the train said they wouldn’t go any other way, and several said the train changed their lives — cutting stress, giving them more time. Some said trains allowed them to buy bigger homes farther away from the city.
Most said the train, which can reach speeds of 70 mph but averages about 40 mph, takes about as long as driving to work would. But it’s far more certain.
“I won’t attempt the drive,” said Kevin J. Sharrett, an engineer who lives in Brooke, Va. “If I miss the train, I work at home. No way will I drive in that mess.”
Brian Stevens, also an engineer, caught up on his latest book and said that, someday, he plans to write one of his own using his extra time on the train. He said he bought a five-bedroom home on three acres in Stafford County, Va., knowing that he could take the train into work.
“My quality of life is completely different,” he said. “I don’t have to get caught in the traffic. I’ve got a great house. It’s absolutely great.”