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Left at 5am, after considering various routes, ended up taking 95-85-1, almost 10 hours exactly.
No drama save for a lot of roadkill, some of which was dangerously on the road, and, a car ahead of me was shooting sparks from one side, his tire was careening away from him on the other side of the road, could have been a serious situation.
Any recommendations on the opposite direction from here to there on a weekday?
Quote:
Originally Posted by NYC2RDU
Cutting through the middle of Pennsylvania will add two hours, without traffic; and there's no guarantee there won't be traffic that way either.
The drive through the D.C. area is mostly about timing and a bit about luck. For a Sunday trip, leave very early morning (get out when the sun comes up) or leave mid-afternoon. The NJ Turnpike is much better outside of rush hour ever since they widened the road through to the Penn Turnpike exit and other than some construction traffic in Delaware you won't catch any notable volume until south of D.C. But if you get there much after 7:00 PM you should be okay. And if the HOV lane is open running south, no matter what, take it (if you have fewer than 3 people in the car make sure you have an NC Quickpass or EZ Pass tag).
The people who get chewed up and spit out by the I-95 trip are the ones who leave when it's convenient for them to do so, don't anticipate the major hot spots and fail to use Waze or Google Maps.
Any recommendations on the opposite direction from here to there on a weekday?
The drive to NY from NC is also about timing. First and foremost, there is construction on I-85 in NC for the last 15 miles or so leading into VA. You are going to be constrained to roughly 55 MPH during the entire stretch so factor that into your plans. The key's to the north-bound drive are to avoid rush hour in Richmond and D.C. My preference is to drive through the night, but if that's not an available option my next favorite option is to head out of Raleigh around 8:00 AM. That gets you through Richmond and D.C. without dealing with rush hour traffic patterns and still affords you the option of using the HOV lanes heading north through D.C. (always use that when available.... ALWAYS!!). Plus, you can take a lunch break in Maryland and still get past Baltimore before the PM rush starts. The wildcard is when you near your NY destination. You can get to central NJ at that time of day with little threat of delay (barring the unforeseen) mid-afternoon. The northbound drive into NYC can be dicey as early as 3:00 PM so you need to monitor traffic via Waze and/or Google Maps to figure out your best river crossing point (although counterintuitive, consider using the GW Bridge instead of the tunnels).
The key to a reduced stress drive is to monitor traffic continuously, have an NC Quick Pass tag and to know when to get out of the traffic and out of the car. I have specific places along the route where I know if I get off the highway there's an abundance of food choices and retail establishments where I can walk around (Target is a family favorite). Also, Exit 104 in VA will generally offer the cheapest gas prices along the route, so factor that into your drive.
It helps a lot, thank you. And good to know about the gas cost.
However....something came up preventing the planned leave.
Now contemplating an 11am departure, which is either a Really Bad Idea or might just miss most of the rush traffic.
If that was a departure today, it's a coin toss if you get into the D.C. area before the rush hour is in full bloom. It's still not horrible (relative to D.C. traffic) heading north during their rush, it's just that one small problem can cripple your drive. My play would be to treat the first 240 miles like a NASCAR race and only stop once, at a location immediately off the highway, where all passengers run into/out of the restrooms while the driver tops off the tank and then get right back to the drive.
Good luck and when in unbearable traffic, don't fight it - get off someplace and get out of the car until it settles down a bit.
Northbound: Had no choice but to leave at that time. What took ~10 hours the opposite way some months back leaving there at 4am this time took ~11.5 hours leaving here at 11:30am. It got pretty heavy in DC and Baltimore, and the GPS took me off 95/295/695/895 through some local DC roads, no idea if that was worth it or not.
This time I used Google Maps, not Waze like I usually use - Waze can be flaky locally sometimes and do some strange routing; this time, it kept calculating or something and never started after plotting the overall course. Google worked fine, just no police warnings and mph indicator (which I use a lot, my speedo is under).
Southbound: Left NYS (not NYC) at 7, was relatively painless with little to no traffic for a ~10-hour trip. I took more but shorter breaks and maxed my fueling in NJ where I could. I think I got lucky with none of those incidents that NYC2RDU mentioned - there was a huge accident in VA nothrbound near Goddard that was backed up for miles.
Both ways I kept it 9 under with little variation.
Observations:
Worst drivers: 1st FL; tied for 2nd: MD & VA, but, of course many more from MD & VA so almost balances out FL.
Northbound there were a lot more tailgaters than Southbound, many with NC plates up to DC or so, again MD drivers were the worst; driving idiocy became non-existent once into NJ, from there it was orderly and efficient, with speeders on the left and laggards to the right, reasonable distances between cars, lane change signaling, no more maniacs.
Southbound: Again the best driving was in NYS & NJ (eat your heart out Cap'n B) with only 1 butthead with NJ plates, and 64 was pleasant.
My observations, I have no local loyalties anywhere, I calls em as I sees em.
I agree with the strategy to blast through that first leg. And next time, I leave earlier, but, for the way back, probably only an hour or so earlier.
Last edited by Repatriot; 05-21-2017 at 05:18 PM..
Then I checked Car Train, which I've never done before but the idea is intriguing.
Auto Train bypasses NC. There are no stops between NoVA and Orlando.
Amtrak does take a while, but it's usually cheaper than last-minute airfare. There are 9 trains a day to the northeast from Richmond, vs. only 2 from Raleigh, since Virginia pays for the extra service.
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