This article is not (IMO) serious journalism (and may not be intended that way, since it is in the Style section), and contains several omissions and at least one big error. It purports to be about all of I-95, but is mostly about I-95 and related highways running N-S reasonably near Washington, D.C.
Washington Post: I-95: The bane of our holiday travel existence (http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/i-95-the-bane-of-our-holiday-travel-existence/2013/12/20/d18382fa-690c-11e3-a0b9-249bbb34602c_story.html)
It did not seem like a joke.
And the story doesn't even mention the fact that I-95 is incomplete.
Funny, I have never had a problem driving I-95 south to NC the day after Christmas. Always a smooth ride that day. Its far worse in the summer.
Quote from: NJRoadfan on December 21, 2013, 12:13:21 AM
Funny, I have never had a problem driving I-95 south to NC the day after Christmas. Always a smooth ride that day. Its far worse in the summer.
Now, through the Carolinas is a different story! The last few years I've headed north to visit family, it was the Carolinas that was my biggest headache, the day after New Years. I swore I was on the world's fastest parking lot until I got to Florence, then thanked God profusely for those three lanes...
Quote from: hbelkins on December 21, 2013, 12:02:29 AM
And the story doesn't even mention the fact that I-95 is incomplete.
Why would it? Not every story needs to mention it. Heck, 95 wasn't completed in Washington DC either.
The overwrought, cliché-ridden writing is standard for the Style section.
Quote from: hbelkins on December 21, 2013, 12:02:29 AM
And the story doesn't even mention the fact that I-95 is incomplete.
Thank you. Perhaps the most glaring admission.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on December 21, 2013, 07:04:42 AM
Quote from: hbelkins on December 21, 2013, 12:02:29 AM
And the story doesn't even mention the fact that I-95 is incomplete.
Why would it? Not every story needs to mention it. Heck, 95 wasn't completed in Washington DC either.
Yes it was, by signing it on the Beltway. The gap in NJ is not even signed.
Of course the story seemed to grasp the obvious; that through traffic from DC and Baltimore going toward NYC will use the New Jersey Turnpike instead of I-95 through Philadelphia.
QuoteAh, 95, you are crafty this year–with your dulcet promises of fully staffed toll plazas and repaired roads, of HOV lanes for everyone. But you can't fool us, not this time. Not while the Maryland House travel plaza remains closed for renovation and we've had to use the bathroom since New York Avenue 40 minutes ago. Not while the signs to Philadelphia turn blurry and fiendish before our eyes, a Hieronymus Bosch painting disguised as a road.
Clearly this writer has never travelled on I-95. The chances of getting from New York Avenue to the Maryland House in 40 minutes are almost nil, and there aren't exactly many signs for Philadelphia either if you use the Jersey Turnpike route she describes.
Me thinks people are way overthinking a lighthearted column about traveling on a holiday.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on December 21, 2013, 08:00:38 PM
Me thinks people are way overthinking a lighthearted column about traveling on a holiday.
I agree with you.
But that
does not relieve the
Post Style section from getting their facts right.
This is still a major newspaper, not
The Onion.
Quote from: 1995hoo on December 21, 2013, 03:15:30 PM
Clearly this writer has never travelled on I-95. The chances of getting from New York Avenue to the Maryland House in 40 minutes are almost nil, and there aren't exactly many signs for Philadelphia either if you use the Jersey Turnpike route she describes.
Agreed. It's about 59 miles from where U.S. 50 leaves Northeast Washington, D.C. to Maryland House (via the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, I-895 and finally I-95).
Maryland seems to have totally forgotten Philadelphia as a destination on I-95 (I wonder if that may change when I-95 is completed at the connection to the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Bristol Township, Pennsylvania).
Quote from: cpzilliacus on December 21, 2013, 11:32:25 PM
Quote from: 1995hoo on December 21, 2013, 03:15:30 PM
Clearly this writer has never travelled on I-95. The chances of getting from New York Avenue to the Maryland House in 40 minutes are almost nil, and there aren't exactly many signs for Philadelphia either if you use the Jersey Turnpike route she describes.
Agreed. It's about 59 miles from where U.S. 50 leaves Northeast Washington, D.C. to Maryland House (via the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, I-895 and finally I-95).
....
Yeah, going through the Baltimore area in particular makes it difficult. My father and I once drove the 246 miles from my parents' house just east of Fairfax City, VA, to my grandmother's house in Bay Ridge (Brooklyn near the Verrazano Bridge) in three hours 20 minutes back in the early 1990s, but even then it took us more than 40 minutes to reach Baltimore, let alone the Maryland House. I can't imagine pulling it off these days, even though nowadays with E-ZPass in theory you can get through the toll plazas a lot faster than we could back then when we were paying cash.
What caught my eye was that the head of DE toll operations is named Victor Buono. He shares his name with King Tut from the old Batman tv show.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ft0.gstatic.com%2Fimages%3Fq%3Dtbn%3AANd9GcS396X_TFvhM1QPJFLmp5a3o6R4qNyU1jilCD7PCYoPXb0ckPy4&hash=cea2d58c1ddf4bb3cde1479869306851099a9827)
Quote from: BamaZeus on December 23, 2013, 12:43:22 PM
What caught my eye was that the head of DE toll operations is named Victor Buono. He shares his name with King Tut from the old Batman tv show.
I remember the character from Batman, but not the name of the actor (usually listed in the credits as "Guest Villain").