Washington, D.C. Fails

As promised, here is a rant on the road signage and traffic patterns in our nation's capitol.  If you want the gist of it now so you can skim the rest, well, they suck.

Since the source material for this rant was obtained by driving around Washington, D.C. on CAINE's Cherry Blossom Festival trip, chances are there are going to be some references to events that took place during said trip.

First up, road signage.  You know how highways have all those helpful signs telling you the places you can go if you get off at each exit?  You know how in regular cities they will also point you towards other nearby major roads you may be interested in getting on (or at least are interested in using as a landmark)?  Yeah.  Getting onto Route 7 from Interstate 66, there is absolutely zero signage telling you to get on Route 7 West if you're interested in Route 123.  Which we so happened to be using as a landmark since our destination was in a shopping center just after it, which was ironically very close to the MAGFest 5 hotel.  We drove quite a ways on Route 7 East before getting hold of people and figuring out we'd turned the wrong fucking way.

Furthermore, getting back onto Interstate 66 from Route 7, the sign that tells you "hey this exit takes you to I-66" is literally in the inside of the curve of the exit ramp, helpfully obscured partially by a nearby tree.  Furthermore, there is absolutely no sign whatsoever stating that the very same exit branches out to let you choose your destiny (East or West).  Hell, there wasn't even a sign saying "Junction I-66".

So we went a few blocks past and used a parking lot on a side road to turn around.  It was then we noticed that another one of our cars had been following us and had also missed the I-66 exit.  Going back, the exits (that's right, there were actually two of them on this side of the road) were clearly labelled in advance of the exit and we easily made it onto I-66 West so we could go home.  What the fucking shit.

While we were driving the wrong way on Route 7 due to lack of useful signage, naturally, we had to experience some traffic patterns.  They range from confusing to absolutely fuckstupid.  At one point I changed lanes one lane to the right only to discover that the lane I had just changed into was ending at the next traffic light and I'd have to move back into the lane I was in to begin with.  Going further in the wrong direction, there's an interchange with Route 50 and one other road whose number and designation I forget where it's basically just a huge intersection with roads branching off everywhere and it's up to you to look far off into the distance for that Route 7 sign if you want to stay on it.

After turning around so we were headed in the correct direction, we went over the interchange with Route 244, and all I can really say is "WTF road maintenance wut".  Seriously.  The road is bumpy as all hell there.  For no real reason as far as I can tell.

Washington, D.C. is full of richfags.  People that have money out the ass, as is evidenced by the number of people I noticed on I-66 who were passing the subway train and getting abysmal gas mileage while doing so, meaning they have to fill up their gas tanks more often and thus have money to burn.  If there are so many rich people in D.C., why can't they put up any god damned signs that fucking help motorists who don't fucking live in the area and therefore don't fucking know exactly where everything is?  Oh wait, I forgot, the only way to get rich is to sit on your money and not use it for anything.  If you actually spend you don't get rich.  Fucking money hogs.  You're the reason the economy sucks right now.