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Untangled Mixing Bowl Still Confusing

 

ALTHOUGH THE WORK to rebuild the gigantic highway interchange in Springfield casually referred to as the "Mixing Bowl" is largely complete, some of the approximately 430,000 drivers who head through the junction of I-95, I-395 and the Capital Beltway south of Washington are still scratching their heads. Although the new configuration was designed with highway safety in mind, the new setup, to some, is more confusing — and dangerous — than ever before.

Photo by Richard A. Lipski/The Washington PostAs The Post's Eric M. Weiss reports:

Drivers complain of counterintuitive highways splits where drivers must head to the left to ultimately go right, and head to the right to go left. ... Traffic engineers will continue to tweak the design and study better signage to smooth traffic flow before the project is officially finished next month.
Earlier this month, four young women died in a car accident on the Beltway's inner loop when the driver collided with a truck while attempting to make a lane change at the point where I-95 splits off toward Richmond.

» "Springfield Interchange Improvement Project" [VDOT]
» "Dust Settled Drivers Still Get Dizzy in Mixing Bowl" [WaPo]
»"Families Mourn Teens Killed in Beltway Crash" [NewsChannel 8]

Photo by Richard A. Lipski/The Washington Post; video by Eric M. Weiss/The Washington Post

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COMMENTS (1)

  • Maybe people should slow down and take time to read the signs rather than use their "intuition" when driving. Just a thought. I'd rather have less traffic/congestion for the 90% of us that can actually read signs and pay attention when driving than not have them create the mixing bowl so that those lazy or unfocused drivers can sit in 2 hours of traffic to get through Springfield.

    By Concerned Citizen , Posted June 25, 2007 5:46 PM
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