Gaggle of geese escorted along 395 Express Lanes in Virginia

Geese Watch: A family of birds disrupt traffic on I-395

There was plenty of honking on the northbound 395 Express Lanes Tuesday morning in Northern Virginia, but it wasn’t just drivers stuck in traffic — it was also due to six geese on the roadway.

A gaggle of geese got its own police and Virginia Department of Transportation escort toward Edsall Road, taking up two lanes of traffic starting around 7 a.m. WTOP Traffic reporters said it took about two hours to get the geese off the roadway.

Judy Malana, of Woodbridge, was on her way to work to Navy Yard, thinking the worst — “another big car accident” — when she saw two geese and four goslings and their police escort.

“It was a delight to see something different. And it just really made me stop and think,” Malana said. “You know, no matter how familiar our commute is, we don’t really know what’s up ahead.”

Because she was in the EZ-Pass lanes, the six geese a-crossing the road, only added 10 minutes to her commute.

And because there were six of them, the geese probably didn’t have to pay a toll. But it still took a couple of hours to get to their exit on the Edsall Road ramp.

geese crossing the road
A gaggle of geese gets an escort at the 395 Express Lanes in Virginia. (Courtesy Judy Malana)

“It just reminded me to be open-minded,” Malana said. “We don’t control traffic. We don’t even control who we’re on the road with. Just learning what’s up ahead, it could be a surprise.”

And as a WTOP Traffic reporter said about the traffic impact on Tuesday morning, “No harm, no ‘fowl.'” Get it?

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Abigail Constantino

Abigail Constantino started her journalism career writing for a local newspaper in Fairfax County, Virginia. She is a graduate of American University and The George Washington University.

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