WASHINGTON — It was bad timing for the Red Line shutdown between Grosvenor-Strathmore and Friendship Heights, as shuttle buses between the two stops were caught in construction delays.
Some of the congestion was due to traffic being diverted at MD-355 South Bound at Battery Lane for construction.
Arya Achmal of Bethesda, Maryland said his ride on a Red Line shuttle this morning was fine until he got near the National Institutes of Health.
“It slowed down and it got really, really bad on Wisconsin Avenue right as we were entering Bethesda,” Achmal said. “There was construction. We had to do a detour. We were inching along at a snail’s pace.”
D.C. resident Silas Dustin said it was another unhappy event, but not unexpected.
“I just think it’s kind of messed up, because they just increased the prices of the Metro,” Dustin said. “Yet once or twice a week there are problems.”
Through Aug. 7, lane closures are to be expected periodically on MD-355, between Woodmont Avenue and Wilson Drive, near the Medical Center Metro Station, the National Institutes of Health and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center at Naval Support Activity Bethesda.
The lane closures are part of the ongoing construction of the Crossing Project at the Medical Center Metro Station.
That project will establish a shallow pedestrian underpass between NIH and Walter Reed. It will also open deep elevators on the Navy side of MD-355 to the Metrorail mezzanine.
Saturday’s construction-related Red Line shuttle delays seemed to bother the locals more than tourists.
“Everyone was really nice,” said Holly Loless from Columbus, Ohio. “They had people directing where to go. We got on the bus, but it was fine.”
“There was some traffic coming through and a lot of construction,” added Phil Peters, also from Columbus. “But, you know, easy peasy.”
Their complaints were more focused on the weather.
“It’s hot,” Loless said. “That’s what I think of the nation’s capital.”
