Among the flurry of President Donald Trump’s executive orders is one that impacts hundreds of thousands of people in the D.C. area — an order to return to in-person work. What will that mean for local residents’ commutes?
“I think obviously, traffic’s an issue in this region,” said Clark Mercer, executive director of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, an organization of elected leaders in the D.C. area. “We’re back to pre-pandemic levels of traffic, even though we’re at 50% capacity in the offices.”
Mercer said as of now, not enough people are carpooling. But once the tens of thousands of federal workers add into the daily commute, “and realize that time is money and they want to move quicker, they’ll look to get in carpools. They’ll look to get into van pools.”
Public transit, in his view, is the best answer.
“Our transit system is ready to have more riders. We just had an inauguration. We’ve got lots of entertainment events that happen on the weekends. On nights and weekends, Metro is above pre-pandemic (levels). It’s during the weekday where they’ve dipped. And so that capacity is there,” Mercer said.
Metro’s most recent Performance Scorecard found a 92% satisfaction rate among its rail customers.
According to reporting by WTOP’s sister station Federal News Network, more than 50% of the federal workforce is already working entirely on-site because of the nature of the job.
A recent FNN survey of federal employees found many said they are more productive when they are able to telework, and are concerned about a “one size fits all” approach to the return-to-office policy.
Mercer said the region’s local governments have already brought workers back to the office, but have taken a commonsense approach. For instance, in Richmond, Annapolis and D.C., office workers are still allowed limited telework days.
“There’s a couple days home and then in the office the rest of the days — in more than you’re out. But showing grace and having some common sense applied here, I think would be the ultimate goal,” Mercer said.
MWCOG coordinates Commuter Connections, which helps local commuters organize carpools and has a program which offers registrants a number of free rides home.
Fifteen percent of the federal workforce is in D.C., Virginia, Maryland and even as far as parts of West Virginia.
A spokesperson for the Maryland State Highway Administration told WTOP it “will continue to monitor traffic patterns and respond to incidents as we do all-year round, 24-hours a day.”
Federal News Network contributed to this report.
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