Virginia's biggest problem, or should I say Northern Virginia's biggest problem, is transportation. Anyone who drives around here knows traffic gets bad. Anyone who commutes into DC knows it's really bad. The average time a DC commuter spends sitting in traffic per year is 74 hours. That's three days. If you don't have something to do while you wait, that's a lot of wasted time.
This isn't really a new problem either. There is a bit of a clash of interests between NoVA and, well, the rest of VA. Even though Northern Virginia pays more in taxes, not all of that money comes back around to help our area. The Metro, currently under construction and set to open in 2013, has gone over budget. But when it does open, it will hopefully help this problem considerably. Mass transit is definitely a good way to go: it's good for the environment! But it's caused a lot of construction to be going on on the highways in its vicinity, particularly on 495. 495 is driver's hell during rush hour. I can definitely see myself racking up three days of sitting in traffic just based on how much time I've spent on that road. Part of the problem isn't even on that road; the exit going from the toll road to 495 is my personal nightmare. It is always backed up. Religiously.
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