Smithsonian museum at Dulles

I tried to go to the museum at the Dulles airport today. Boy, they do a
good job of hidding that little gem. D.C. easily has the worst roads
for visitors in any city in any country I've ever visited. It is very
hard to find things...

1) Many roads have formal names as well as common names. The map lists
the formal name but the signs often only use the common name (i.e. U.S.
123 is formal but Foobar St. is common).
2) Often turn off signs are located at the turn off or just after the
turn off, no warning. For example, from 66 to 50 there is a sign "50
next turn", however, there is a concrete barrier between you and the
off ramp. You had to predict that you needed to get off before the
barrier begins, but the sign is after the barrier
3) Slower drivers don't seem to have any inclination to stay to the
right.
4) Sometimes two roads will have the same name. For example, when you
get to the end of 66 W you have the option of taking the 66 E ramp.
That ramp takes you North of the hwy and down another freeway entirly,
seeming to never get you back to the original road (also named 66) that
you were just on.
5) Even though the museum is at the airport DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT, DO
NOT take the "Airport road". This is a 7 mile long hell hole with NO
EXITS until you get to the main Dulles terminal. You have to ride it
out both ways. It would be nice if they said "No turn off for 7 miles
before you bought the road. Or even U turn places would work.
6) At one point there was a sign that said "use exit 9B for museum".
Then the freeways splits 3 says. Never did find out which of the 3
roads contained a 9B.

By the time I got there it was 59 minutes before closing and they close
the main gate an hour before closing. So 2 hours of driving all over
the place were wasted. Next time, I'm bringing the laptop with the
built-in GPS and teach my wife to use it.

-Robert, frustrated D.C. tourist

(BTW: If you take the Metro and bring your family, understand that you
can only run your credit card once per day (the system will reject it
after that). So if you have a family of 4 and want to add money to each
person's metro card (each must be done seperately) you must carry 4
credit cards.)

However, all on all, I'm having a great time!!

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com

I tried to go to the museum at the Dulles airport today. Boy, they do
a good job of hidding that little gem. D.C. easily has the worst roads
for visitors in any city in any country I've ever visited. It is very
hard to find things...

I'm sorry to hear you suffered those frustrations. I can't do much about
the roads, but if you'd let some of us know your intentions ahead of time,
we *may* have been able to save you some trouble.

From downtown'ish, perhaps an easier trip (although not necessarily shorter)
is:
I-66 West to Route 28 (Sully Road) North.
Stay on Route 28 and follow the big brown signs to the museum. You'll cross
Route 50 (Lee Jackson Highway), pass Sully Plantation, then you'll exit for
the museum.

If you're downtown already, you can catch a regular shuttle bus that runs
between the downtown museum and the Dulles extension. The ride costs ~$8
which is $4 cheaper than parking at the Dulles museum.

--
John T
http://tknowlogy.com/TknoFlyer
http://www.pocketgear.com/products_s...veloperid=4415
____________________

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message

......D.C. easily has the worst roads
for visitors in any city in any country I've ever visited. It is very
hard to find things...

1) Many roads have formal names as well as common names. The map lists
the formal name but the signs often only use the common name (i.e. U.S.
123 is formal but Foobar St. is common).

This is standard procedure everywhere. Roads have different names in
different municipalities. Route number signs are posted along the right
side at intervals. This is a federal standard that applies everywhere.

2) Often turn off signs are located at the turn off or just after the
turn off, no warning. For example, from 66 to 50 there is a sign "50
next turn", however, there is a concrete barrier between you and the
off ramp. You had to predict that you needed to get off before the
barrier begins, but the sign is after the barrier

No, not often, but that one case you cite is a bear. When you hit I66w from
the Beltway North, the exit for 50 comes quickly. The "50 next turn" sign
refers to the Ox Rd exit, about a half mile down. That turnoff on the other
side of the barrier just goes into a residential development.

3) Slower drivers don't seem to have any inclination to stay to the
right.

I agree with you here. Some are deliberately playing the politically
correct speed game, but for the most part I have never anywhere encountered
a more generally oblivious group of drivers than in the Northern VA area.

4) Sometimes two roads will have the same name. For example, when you
get to the end of 66 W you have the option of taking the 66 E ramp.
That ramp takes you North of the hwy and down another freeway entirly,
seeming to never get you back to the original road (also named 66) that
you were just on.

Look at a map [perhaps before your trip, next time]. Where I66 and the
Beltway intersect, there is a large, triangular intersection that actually
spans a few miles, so there are really two I66s that you'll encounter from
the Beltway.

5) Even though the museum is at the airport DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT, DO
NOT take the "Airport road". This is a 7 mile long hell hole with NO
EXITS until you get to the main Dulles terminal.

Actually, iirc, the Dulles Road is now a double barreled highway, with one
section express to Dulles and the outer section having local exits. I also
recall pretty good signage at the start of the double section, but I guess
you just missed it. Kinda like getting stuck in an express HOV lane if you
miss the signs.

Sorry you had such a frustrating time.

"John Gaquin" writes:

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message

.....D.C. easily has the worst roads
for visitors in any city in any country I've ever visited. It is very
hard to find things...

1) Many roads have formal names as well as common names. The map lists
the formal name but the signs often only use the common name (i.e. U.S.
123 is formal but Foobar St. is common).

This is standard procedure everywhere. Roads have different names in
different municipalities. Route number signs are posted along the right
side at intervals. This is a federal standard that applies everywhere.

I've only very rarely seen it, at least at the level of freeways,
which is what I think the OP was talking about. Chicago has a bunch,
and it really causes confusion. I haven't seen it other places much,
though.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

On 28 May 2005 19:22:59 -0700, "Robert M. Gary"
wrote:

I tried to go to the museum at the Dulles airport today. Boy, they do a
good job of hidding that little gem. D.C. easily has the worst roads
for visitors in any city in any country I've ever visited. It is very
hard to find things...

Well, Dulles and Udvar-Hazy are located in Virginia, so it's not fair
to blame your problems on the District.

By the time I got there it was 59 minutes before closing and they close
the main gate an hour before closing. So 2 hours of driving all over
the place were wasted. Next time, I'm bringing the laptop with the
built-in GPS and teach my wife to use it.

I've never tried it by automobile, but the $7 bus from NASM downtown
is easy, competitive with U-H parking unless you've got a gang, and
enables you to see the sights of DC.

(BTW: If you take the Metro and bring your family, understand that you
can only run your credit card once per day (the system will reject it
after that). So if you have a family of 4 and want to add money to each
person's metro card (each must be done seperately) you must carry 4
credit cards.)

I've found that all cities, not just DC, eat twenty-dollar bills. When
I go to town, I just load up with twenties, fives, and quarters.

However, all on all, I'm having a great time!!

Going back to UH, now that you know the way, is really worth the
effort. I got there before it opened for the day, and I left on the
three o'clock bus, and I was enthralled every minute except for those
I spent in the gift shop.


-- all the best, Dan Ford

email (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum: www.pipercubforum.com
the blog: www.danford.net
In Search of Lost Time: www.readingproust.com

Its amazing how good they are at eating $$. When I was driving around
lost (trying to follow M.S. streets on my PDA) I easily hit every toll
booth around Dulles (3 of them). The $7 bus ride math works differently
for me because I have to multiply everything by 4. So the bus ride is
$28 but parking is still $12. The big ****er is my GPS plug-in
(Holux 270U that plugs into my PDA) went TU just before I left. I sent
it back and just got an email that it will take 2 to 3 months to repair
under waranty. I sure could have used it now.

-Robert

-Robert, frustrated D.C. tourist

You've convinced me, Robert: Flying in is the way to go...

Isn't it amazing that we (as a people) have so many highly paid "public
servants" who do NOTHING but design road systems -- and yet can get it so
wrong?

Iowa City is full of this kind of stupidity. We've got Muscatine St.,
Muscatine Avenue, Lower Muscatine Dr -- what, like, no one could think of a
unique name for these streets? When we first moved here, we were on the
wrong Muscatine every day.

And this isn't an isolated incident, and it's certainly not unique to Iowa
City. Every city I've lived in has similar examples.

What I like is when the road planners decided to install "traffic calming
devices" (AKA: Chicanes) on a road -- without telling the residents in
advance! Overnight, they started installing these crazy things that
required traffic to literally zig-zag down their street.

Needless to say, the residents were furious, and went straight to City Hall.
Within a month, the work crews were out, bulldozing the new chicanes -- at
incredible expense.

Even funnier is our latest-and-greatest computer-controlled stoplights, now
with little cameras on each pole. Because of this wonderful system, it is
now possible to get EVERY SINGLE RED LIGHT as you drive across town! What
a wonderful innovation!

When traffic is relatively light, they do an okay job of keeping things
moving -- but as soon as things pick up, bang -- you WILL get every red
light, as it is working just a smidge out of sync with the actual traffic
flow.

You'd think they'd get this right, by now. I lived in Racine, WI when they
received a grant for the very first non-experimental, computer-controlled
stop lights in the nation, way back in the early 1970s. These were the
first "loop-in-the-ground" sensors, all connected to a central computer down
at City Hall. I actually wrote an article about this system for my high
school newspaper, and it was a marvel of technology (the computer looked
like something out of Lost in Space) for the time.

And -- it worked. Because all the lights were interconnected, there was an
"over-ride" mode that would enable the system to sense big slugs of traffic
at rush hour. They would then stop individually sensing (and changing) and
become more "sequenced" -- just like the old mechanical stop lights tried to
do.

I don't know why they got away from that -- I suppose cost.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Maybe its worse with M.S streets since it only seems to show the
federal name. I've noticed that back home in Sacramento. It lists
streets as U.S. 123. I've lived in Sacramento for 20 years and never
knew those streets by that name. It would be nice if street signs
listed both names. I do have a map, its M.S. streets. Since I knew the
museum was at the airport I followed the sign that said "Airport
traffic". WOW, BIG MISTAKE. That is the 7 mile long, no exit, no U turn
road that takes you to the terminal.
I do have to say that once you figure out the Metro it does work
nicely. They run frequently and seem to run on time. It is more
complicated than other city trains I've taken but it works. You
actually seem to pay by the mile, so when you get on the train you look
up the station you will get off on and it gives you the price. Each
station to station is a different price. I still think the Paris Metro
is easier to understand though, they just use zones to distiguish
price.

-Robert

While you are in town, be sure to go to the College Park Air Museum.
It's easy to find. Just follow the Rt 1 Metro signs or take the Metro.
Great museum without the hassles of the Dulles Smithsonian. Nice
restraunt on the field too.

Also, if you think you might be flying yourself into DC again, while you
are at College Park you can pick up the paperwork procedures for being
vetted into the DC3. You'll need to make a trip to National Airport and
one of the local FSDOs, but you'll be able to fly yourself into
College Park and catch the metro from there on future trips.

Helen

"John Gaquin" wrote:
...for the most part I have never anywhere encountered a more
generally oblivious group of drivers than in the
Northern VA area.


I have never been to any city in the U. S. where the locals did not
believe their fellow drivers were the worst anywhere.

A sure way to start an "I can top that!" contest is to mention, in a
room full of people from around the country, how bad the drivers are
back home.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM