WASHINGTON — Drivers who use the Interstate 95 and Interstate 395 Express Lanes found their commutes longer than normal because the northbound Express Lanes did not open on time after storms Monday night caused power problems with the remote controls to the gates.
The lanes were supposed to open at 2 a.m. They started opening just before 6 a.m.
All of the gates opened by 6:53 a.m.
“We’d like to apologize to anybody who did experience delays,” Pierce Coffee, spokeswoman for Transurban, the company responsible for opening and closing the gates, told WTOP.
The gates had to be opened manually, Cofee says.
The process of opening the gates took a couple of hours, as workers started with the gates on I-395 and worked their way south to the first gate at Garrisonville Road in Stafford County.
“We got them open as safely and carefully as possible,” Coffee says.
She says Transurban will evaluate what happened to try to prevent problems in the future.
“We’ll look at everything we can based on what we’ve learned from what happened overnight. It’s the first time where we have had an issue where electricity and power has caused an issue like this.”
