Prince William, yet again, ranks poorly for its traffic

MANASSAS -- Prince William County has once again been singled out for bad traffic.

On the heels of a report that said area commuters have the worst trek to work of any spot in the nation, the authors of a new study have also noted the area for having some of the worst bottlenecks in the Washington region.

INRIX -- a Washington state-based company that collects traffic data for the Virginia Department of Transportation, the I-95 Corridor Coalition, Ford Motor Company and various GPS providers -- issued a report that marked Washington as having the fourth-worst traffic in the U.S.

Called the National Traffic Scorecard, it shows that the capital city moved up two spots on the survey over last year and stated that conditions are getting worse across the country.

After historic declines in driving, blamed on both the recession and the record gas prices last year, drivers are once again taking to the roads.

Rick Schuman, vice president of the public sector at INRIX, said the Washington area was seemingly immune to the affects the recession had on traffic in other U.S. cities.

"Anyone traveling on I-95 south of Springfield knows where the bottlenecks are, and we have that area listed as having some of the worst bottlenecks in the region," Schuman said.

A former Fairfax County resident, Schuman left the area at the start of the Springfield Interchange Improvement Project 10 years ago.

"When we look at bottlenecks, it's tilted more towards Virginia than Maryland, and it's always the usual suspects," he said.

Topping the region's most congested spots are Interstate 95 between Potomac Mills and Cardinal Drive in Dale City, the Dulles Toll Road merge at Interstate 66, Interstates 395 and 95 through Fairfax County and the ever-congested bottleneck on the Virginia side of the 14th Street Bridge.

The typical urban commuter spends more than 30 hours a year stuck in traffic delays. Washington-area drivers on average spend at least six minutes more in their cars during their commute than they did in 2008.

While Los Angeles and New York City top the list as the most congested cities, Baton Rouge saw the biggest increase in delays as it jumped from 22 on the list last year to 13. San Diego saw the largest decline, falling from 13th to 19th.

Richmond ranked 60th in the survey for metro-area congestion, down from 56th in 2007. Virginia Beach ranked 32nd in 2008, hanging on to the same ranking from 2007.

INRIX tracks and uses data from GPS-enabled vehicles that travel across nearly 1 million miles of roads to compile the report.

Uriah A. Kiser is a staff writer for the News & Messenger of Woodbridge.