MCLEAN, Va. (DC News Now) — Neighbors in one Fairfax County neighborhood are begging for drivers to avoid their streets during rush hour. They say apps like Waze and Google Maps are partly to blame.
The Capital Beltway (I-495) is under construction, causing a lot of traffic.
“Traffic is moving at 6 miles per hour on the beltway so it’s starting to back up as we talked about. It’s a holiday weekend,” said Amanda Clarke.
And when it backs up it oftentimes comes to Georgetown Pike.
“Once (Georgetown Pike) starts to get backed up a certain way then they start looking for alternates thanks to Waze and other crowdsourcing apps and they start funneling into the neighborhood,” Clarke said.
Clarke says it boxes her and her neighbors in.
“We can’t even get in and out of our driveways. Sometimes school buses aren’t able to go through the neighborhood, any kind of emergency vehicle,” Clarke said. “It’s just complete gridlock and maddening.”
When it’s not gridlock, she says speeding is a problem.
“My neighbor just the other day said she had to jump out of the road for a huge truck that came barreling through that was not looking for her on this particular corner,” Clarke said.
It’s especially dangerous with cars coming over this hump near Douglass Drive and Georgetown Pike.
“It’s terrifying. It’s absolutely terrifying,” Clarke said.
It’s just a short distance from the only crosswalk for kids to use to get to and from school to cross Georgetown Pike.
“Our neighbors have pleaded with the county to put in signs, put in speed bumps, alert drivers to the dangers of the only crosswalk,” Clarke said.
The Fairfax County Department of Transportation said the road doesn’t qualify to have speed bumps or signs saying people can’t cut through because the speed limit isn’t 25 miles per hour.