The way AAA Mid-Atlantic tells it, the Tuesday after Labor Day is one of the year’s most “mind-numbing, soul-robbing” days traffic-wise.
The automobile association says that DC-area drivers should “brace themselves” for the one-two punch of kids going back to school and workers returning from summer vacations today. After a two-month respite from the worst of the area’s traffic, things should be back to gridlock-as-usual — a “dreadful day of reckoning” known as “Terrible Traffic Tuesday.”
AAA notes that about 1.5 million local commuters drive to work solo on any given workday. The group says that despite the increasing number of people working from home, Metro’s recent troubles and the new peak-of-the-peak fare may be putting more cars on the road.
“With the recent fare increases and number of breakdowns, more and more people could be shying away from some of the area’s mass transit alternatives,” said AAA Mid-Atlantic spokesperson John Townsend.