14th Street Bridge Traffic

I only had my lunch left to make when I looked at the clock and it was 7:15. I quickly made my lunch with the knowledge that if I didn't make it out of the house in the next 5-10 minutes I was risking a long wait at the slug line. I was in the car by 7:21 and when I got to the slug lot a few minutes later, there was a long line of cars and only about five or six people waiting for new cars. I always leave my house hoping it's going to be a day like this where it's much more likely that I'll be in a car within a few minutes. I started to make my way through the line of cars since the people in line had already turned them down, and my Republican Talk Show driver was car number three. Success.

Traffic wasn't too bad, and I got dropped off right in front of my office. Riding with RTS is always quiet and uneventful, and door-to-door it took me 45 minutes to get to work. Pretty good considering we did wait in some traffic and getting across the 14th street bridge is always a delay. But I think the shortest it's ever taken me in the morning has been about 30 minutes total, on a day with amazingly zero traffic. It's kind of sad how happy it makes me when I have days like those. I think I feel like I'm beating the system and it just satisfies me. I guess it's the little things that get you through the day.

And even on the best traffic days, it could take even less time if 14th street wasn't so jam-packed and messy. Merging everywhere and I don't know, maybe people stop to look at the marvelous river we're crossing. I'm usually engulfed in a book or playing Angry Birds on my iPhone but if for some reason I don't have mental stimulation, I'll just take a breath and relax and look at the cherry blossoms as we pass or something. So maybe the drivers are doing the same, who knows. Most days it could take only 20 minutes or so to get to the 14th street bridge from the slug lot, but once you're there you sit in traffic for an equal amount of time just to get from the bridge uptown. It can be frustrating when you're so close but yet so far, but I do ohave a better understanding of the layout of 14th street DC now.