The Virginia Department of Transportation permanently closed a ramp off Interstate 395 South near the Pentagon to eliminate some dangerous driving.
The ramp at Boundary Channel Drive coupled with some bad direction advice from GPS often caused drivers to cut almost directly across lanes of fast-moving traffic on I-395, leading to crashes.
Now, traffic will be diverted to a new exit ramp to I-395 South, giving drivers more time to merge onto the highway. It’s about three football fields more distance to make any needed merges and moves on I-395.
“It’s taken some time to get used to, but it’s not too bad,” driver Xavier Craig said. “It looks a lot better than before.”
GPS was telling many drivers to make the move across traffic, so VDOT also worked with companies like Google to stop the directional commands.
“People that were coming off of Boundary Channel were then getting instructions to veer all the way over into the left turn lane,” said Ellen Kamilakis of VDOT. “So, it really was just a matter of reaching out and saying, ‘Hey, this is an unsafe movement.’”
VDOT said this doesn’t completely solve the issue of unsafe merges but likely will lead to a big improvement.
Transportation
Reporter Adam Tuss and the News4 team are covering you down on the roads and in transit.
The entire Boundary Channel Drive interchange is being redesigned to include bike and pedestrian improvements.
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