District Department of Transportation to rename 3rd Street tunnel and I-695

DC interstate confusion could lead to renaming highways

Confusion among drivers – especially if they’re from outside the DC area – could lead to changes for some highway names in D.C.

WASHINGTON - D.C.’s roadways can get complicated and now the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is proposing to rename two major highways.

The city’s transportation agency confirmed for FOX 5 DC, they plan to rename or re-number I-695 and the 3rd Street Tunnel.

"It’s the numbering. So I think you’ll find that some of the numbering as you go into the tunnels, it kinds of end or it may start off with a different numbering system. So that’s been part of the problem, part of the confusion. So what has happened in the past is that you had a lot of travelers who thought they were going one way and then they were very quickly trying to exit to another part of the highway because they didn’t realize that the highway had changed," said Acting DDOT Director Everett Lott.

Lott was talking about the I-395/I-695 interchange. The agency is focused on the portion of I-395 that takes drivers from Virginia in the District of Columbia. However if you’re following along and are not familiar with the area, transportation officials say plenty of drivers have gotten confused as they reach the 3rd Street Tunnel exit. Signs begin to read "I-695" and "I-295" further down. Officials say drivers see "I-395 North" at the 3rd Street Tunnel exit and try to cross over, confused by the sudden highway name change, even though I-395 turns into I-695 if you keep heading East.

The proposal would be to rename/renumber I-695 (or the Southeast Freeway) to I-395 from the 3rd Street Tunnel to I-295. DDOT is also proposing to rename the 3rd St. Tunnel to I-195.

First reported by WTOP, a 2020 transportation report explaining the issue read in part, "safety students indicate that over 100 crashes annually are associated with weaving activity as a result of the unexpected exit condition experienced on approach to the I-395/I-695 interchange." The report goes on to say, "Over the last five years, fixed object (attenuator) crashes at the I-395/I-695 diverge indicate 37 crashes (17 injuries) with 13 crashes (6 injuries) directly attributed to exit condition confusion."

"The signs denote 395, 295, 695. I guess if you can read you shouldn’t have a problem!" said Fred Hoston, who told FOX 5 he is very familiar with the area and feels money could be better spent elsewhere.

"Like 395 to 695 right on that bridge, yeah it’s awful. ‘Cause you have everybody coming in off of, whatever’s the right entrance, they all want to go left … every time you go through there, there’s someone stopped in the guard point or somebody crashed into it or something. It’s a mess," Patrick Welborn.

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"The biggest issue I have is just people don’t know how to merge and they don’t know how to drive!" said a woman who asked not to be identified. That woman did tell FOX 5 she grew up in the Virginia area and tries to avoid I-395 as much as possible.

Some agreed they would like to see better traffic mitigation in this stretch of highway.

The name changes will not be happening immediately.

"DDOT is in the process of quantifying the scope of the project to identify the most effective contractual mechanism to handle the design and installation work, and therefore the implementation is not expected for another 12-18 months," a DDOT official told FOX 5.

The acting director told FOX 5 that process includes changing both highway and local roadway signs and also community with the major GPS companies like WAYZ and Google Maps to make sure the changes are reflected on transportation apps as well. The department did not immediately detail how much the proposal could cost.