There's nothing like a trip on Interstate 81 to unsettle your nerves. This morning I got the pleasure of an intense thunderstorm and some trucks who decided that "no trucks in the left lane" didn't apply to them on the mountain after the Roanoke River rest stop headed towards Blacksburg.
In fact those same trucks stayed in the left lane all the way to Christiansburg Mountain where the Va. Tech traffic exits. Of course that meant traffic slowed to 45 mph at times. That always brings out the best in some drivers. Those are the ones trying to sneak around everyone and into the all too little space left between vehicles.
If government can't figure out how to fix Interstate 81, then we should figure out how to fix government. Interstate 81 is unsafe much of the time. It's just not a highway that is helping our area these days. It has become a very negative part of living here especially around holidays.
If you don't think Interstate 81 is a problem then you obviously don't spend much time on Interstate 81. Widening the highway to six lanes would just catch us up to our current traffic levels on much of the highway. I hope our politicians come to their senses before Interstate 81 develops daily gridlock.
Thankfully, we don't have traffic like that in Northern Virginia in little bucolic Vienna.
Well, sometimes I66 gets backed up inside the Beltway in both directions, but at least outbound should be widened soon. ;-]
Posted by: Stephen | April 15, 2006 at 07:14 AM
You are so full of it. The one thing you don't have are a zillion eighteen wheelers. You've got more cars than you have parking spaces unless you count Route 50 which is sometimes just a moving parking lot which is often what Interstate 66 becomes in the morning and afternoon.
We should ban trucks going to Northern Virginia. You guys would starve since they would all go over to Interstate 95 and the food would rot before it got to you.
Posted by: ocracokewaves | April 15, 2006 at 07:43 AM
Driving on I81 is frustrating. Especially when truckers take both lanes down hill (fast) and up hill (slow). However, it cannot be safe to take pics while zooming down the road at 65 mph, huh?
Drive safely...
Posted by: Al | April 15, 2006 at 11:49 PM
Actually it's a tiny camera which has a 2.5 inch LCD for a viewfinder so I don't have to take my eyes off the road or hand off the wheel, and it takes less than 1/250 of a second. Actually I feel a lot safer taking a picture than when someone calls me on my cell phone.
Posted by: ocracokewaves | April 16, 2006 at 07:50 AM