> And sure it's nice (if you live in one of these places) to be able to drive to the huge grocery store and pick from 8 different kinds of mustard
It's not. It's a disaster. It takes you 30 minutes just to grab some toothpaste if you run out. The NOVA suburbs are utterly dysfunctional and traffic is near a breaking point. It's often faster to drive to DC from Annapolis than from Great Falls or Reston (despite the latter being half the distance).
There's a name for this sort of misunderstanding on the internet, but it escapes me.
To be clear, what I meant is "All other factors ignored, it can be mildly convenient to have access to this abundance of choice." Although, I actually hate having this much choice, as it makes it impossible to shop in a grocery store you don't know, and while I'm at it, I love the size of Trader Joe's parking lots. I was trying to address one (of many, many) complaints that people bring when you suggest something taming the infrastructure demon. Also frequently heard: "If you shrink the lane width and slow the roads down to 25, it'll take forever to get across town!" First of all, if you stop building dumb stroads (street-road hybrids, the aforementioned futon of traffic engineering), the towns will be much smaller, so you'll only have to go half the distance. Hell, you might even be able walk or ride your bike!
I feel for you if you're living and commuting around DC. I did a month-long internship that had me commuting between Fort Meade and Annapolis, and it made me swear off commuting by car. I also spent years making frequent trips between Annapolis and Charlottesville, so I got to watch the expansion down the 95 corridor. You haven't experienced the madness of crowds until you've seen people buying expensive homes as far South as Stafford so that they can spend the next decade hating themselves as they spend 10% of their existence hating themselves as they idle on 95. The DC beltway is the epitome of poor land use.
Of course it's faster to drive to DC from Annapolis; Maryland does not have a river between it and DC. There are dozens of streets that connect...it's essentially a continuous urban zone across the border.
To drive from VA to DC, you have your choice of 5 bridges with an aggregate total of about 15 lanes to carry all the traffic. It doesn't take much volume to back things up.
It's not. It's a disaster. It takes you 30 minutes just to grab some toothpaste if you run out. The NOVA suburbs are utterly dysfunctional and traffic is near a breaking point. It's often faster to drive to DC from Annapolis than from Great Falls or Reston (despite the latter being half the distance).