B4 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, AUGUST 23 , 2019
delay at that scale is just enor-
mous.”
The solution, experts said, is
that “more of everything” is need-
ed, although the solutions aren’t
the same everywhere.
In some cities, researchers said
more roads and highways could
decrease congestion. Other areas
need more rail and bus options at
peak times. Solutions also include
encouraging employees to tele-
work or to adjust work hours to
off-peak times.
“If you ask your chamber of
commerce, they’d say, ‘I like the
fact we have congestion. It means
there’s jobs, people are in town
and there’s money,’ ” Schrank
said. “But your citizens would like
to have a balance of the traffic and
life they want to have.”
[email protected]boarding an airplane, doctor’s ap-
pointments and day-care pickup.
Instead of 20 minutes that
might be needed in light traffic,
the report says it’s best to plan a34-minute trip.
“Those minutes don’t sound
like much, but they add up quick-
ly over a year,” Schrank said.
“Eventually, we’re talking billions
of wasted hours, and the cost ofIt’s not just the nation’s largest
cities that are experiencing
lengthier delays. The study also
found worsening traffic jams in
medium and smaller cities.Experts said traditional morn-
ing and evening “rush hours” are
blending in with heavy traffic at
other times of the day. Drivers are
increasingly allowing extra time
for time-sensitive trips, such asreport said.
Researchers said commuters
typically allow 45 minutes for a
trip that would generally take
20 minutes, accounting for the
uncertainties of traffic.
Tracey Johnstone, a board
member of the Action Committee
for Transit, which advocates for
improved public transit in Mont-
gomery County, said she wasn’t
surprised by the study’s findings.
“It’s a waste of time,” she said.
“It’s no way to live. It’s bad for the
car. It’s bad for the roads. It’s bad
for the environment. It’s bad for
your health.”
She said she would like more
dedicated bus lanes, especially
along 16th Street in the District,
and increases in MARC commut-
er rail options to help decrease
congestion.for commuters have been grow-
ing, even as Washington has
stayed in third place in the report
for the past five years. The area
hasn’t seen large shifts like other
major cities because of the steady
job growth and the consistency of
the federal government, re-
searchers said.
“It tells you that the economy
and job market has been steady in
D.C.,” said David Schrank, a sen-
ior research scientist at the Texas
A&M Transportation Institute.
“You haven’t had some of the
peaks and valleys in D.C. that
other areas have had.”
The 102 hours of delay in Wash-
ington are up from 67 hours in
2013 — a year in which the region
claimed the top spot as the most
congested in the nation. Delays in
Los Angeles have nearly doubled
from that year’s report.
Data in this week’s report is
based on 2017 figures, the most
recent available, from the Federal
Highway Administration and in-
cludes speed information from
Inrix, a company based in Kirk-
land, Wash., that tracks vehicle
data for navigation systems and
devices.
Nationwide, a commuter
spends an average of 54 hours a
year stuck in traffic, the study
found. That translates into
8.8 billion hours of extra travel
time for drivers. In that time,
researchers pointed out that
124 million couples could have
binge-watched all eight seasons
of “Game of Thrones.”
That congestion brings the ex-
tra cost of time and fuel estimated
to be worth $166 billion, using an
extra 3.3 billion gallons of fuel,
researchers said.
In the Washington area, com-
muters experienced about
248 million hours of delays. The
region lost $4.6 billion — or about
$1,800 a year per commuter — in
lost time and fuel because of
traffic, the report said. Road con-
gestion means the area uses
about 90 million gallons of extra
fuel.
The study showed peak con-
gestion in Washington is between
7 a.m. and 8 a.m. Monday through
Thursday, with other bad traffic
snarls daily from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
There’s also a spike in traffic from
noon to 5 p.m. on weekends, the
TRAFFIC FROM B1
BY JUSTIN JOUVENALThe U.S. Coast Guard suspend-
ed Thursday at sundown a mas-
sive search for two firefighters
who disappeared during a fishing
trip off the coast of Florida,
officials said at a Thursday news
conference.
The announcement came on
the seventh day of the search for
Fairfax County firefighter Justin
Walker and Jacksonville, Fla.,
firefighter Brian McCluney,
which has covered more than
105,000 square miles of Atlantic
Ocean and has drawn national
attention.
Coast Guard Capt. Mark Vlaun
said the chances of finding Walk-
er and McCluney alive had dwin-
dled and the area to search had
grown too large with the drift of
ocean currents potentially carry-
ing the boat anywhere from Flor-
ida to New England, where ves-
sels searched off the coast Thurs-
day.
“At this point in time, without
additional information, we have
simply reached a point where our
computer modeling and our abil-
ity to search in a given location
are no longer allowing us to
search with any reasonable de-
gree or probability of success,”
Vlaun said.
Walker’s family did not im-
mediately reply to a request for
comment, but an official with the
Fairfax County firefighters’
union said he expected volun-
teers to continue searching de-
spite the long odds. The search
drew dozens of volunteers in
boats and aircraft, as well as an
outpouring of funds to support
the effort.
“We are hoping for a miracle,”
said Eric Villman, secretary and
treasurer of the International
Association of Firefighters Local- “It would be completely on
brand for Walker to show up with
no help from anyone else.”
Family members were opti-
mistic after the discovery of a
tackle bag belonging to Mc-
Cluney about 50 nautical miles
off the coast of St. Augustine, Fla.,
on Monday, but hopes have grad-
ually faded after rescuers found
no other debris that might focus
their efforts.
It remains unclear what befell
the boaters. The pair did not
issue a distress signal or warn of
any problems before they disap-
peared. The weather was mostly
good, besides a band of thunder-
storms that swept the area the
afternoon of Aug. 16. McCluney’s
wife speculated in interviews
that the boat may have broken
down, which it had done before.
The friends launched their 24-
foot boat from Port Canaveral,
which is near the Kennedy Space
Center on Florida’s central Atlan-
tic Coast on the morning of
Aug. 16. They had planned to go
to a fishing spot called reef “8A”
and return by 6 p.m., a trip that
was meant to honor McCluney’s
recently deceased father, family
members said.
When the firefighters had not
returned by 8 p.m., family mem-
bers notified the Coast Guard,
and the search began. The search
included dozens of boats and
multiple aircraft from local, state
and federal agencies, including
the Navy and Customs and Bor-
der Protection.
Villman said he sat next to
Walker for six months in recruit
school for the Fairfax County Fire
Department, calling him indus-
trious and easy to work with.
“Walker was the type of guy
people would want to be a fire-
fighter,” Villman said.
Villman said he didn’t take
Walker’s disappearance seriously
at first because his colleague is a
consummate outdoorsman and
adventurer. He expected Walker
to show up soon enough with a
story to tell.
Villman said Walker and his
wife are campsite minders near
the Shenandoah Valley and he is
an avid motorcyclist. Walker is
originally from Florida, but he
moved to the D.C. area to take a
job with the Fairfax County Fire
Department, where he has
worked for seven years.
Walker is a master technician
at the Franconia fire station.
Villman said he was an expert in
the operations of firetrucks.
McCluney is a decorated Navy
veteran who is married and has
two children.
Villman said he was apprecia-
tive of the work of the Coast
Guard and the volunteers.
“It’s incredible what people
did for him, but it’s a sad day,”
Villman said Thursday. “Today’s a
sad day.”
[email protected]
VIRGINIASearch for
firefighters
called off
after week
BY DANA HEDGPETHA Northern Virginia prosecutor
said no criminal charges will be
filed against two police officers in
Prince William County in connec-
tion with the shooting of a man
who allegedly charged at them
with a knife.
After 6 a.m. on Aug. 15, Mark
Edward Johnson, 54, got into a
fight with his wife at a home in the
4300 block of Flodden Court in
Woodbridge, police said. Another
woman called police on behalf of
the man’s wife.
Authorities said Johnson had
threatened his wife with a screw-
driver. When officers arrived, they
found her in the front yard of the
home, where she told police herhusband had threatened her and
her children.
She also told officers he was
armed with a knife and BB gun.
Johnson eventually came to the
front door, and officers “issued
commands,” police said in a state-
ment. Police said he ignored the
commands and approached the
officers in a “charging motion”
with the knife.
The two officers then fired their
handguns and struck Johnson. He
was taken to a hospital with seri-
ous injuries but is expected to
survive.
The officers, the man’s wife and
the children were not hurt.
Johnson faces charges that in-
clude two counts of attempted ma-
licious wounding of a law enforce-
ment officer. He is scheduled to
appear in court Oct. 2.
Prince William County Com-
monwealth’s Attorney Paul B.
Ebert (D) said in a statement that
“both officers were justified in
their use of deadly force against
the suspect.” He said the officers“were confronted by [the suspect]
with a knife and clearly were
placed in reasonable fear of death
or serious bodily harm.”
Prince William County Police
Chief Barry M. Barnard said in a
statement that officers were “pre-
sented with a difficult decision
and had to act quickly to stop the
threat, not only to themselves, but
to his family.”
The officers were identified as
Anthony Edwards, 27, and Mi-
chael Ragan, 24. Both have been
with the department for more
than three years and are assigned
to the operations division.
Neither has previously been in-
volved in a police shooting, and
both have returned to duty, offi-
cials said.
A separate investigation into
the incident is being conducted by
the department’s Office of Profes-
sional Standards, and a final re-
view will be done by the agency’s
Use of Deadly Force Review Board,
according to the department.
[email protected]VIRGINIANo charges for o∞cers who shot man
He is expected to survive
after Pr. William police
say he brandished knifeStudy: D.C. traffic is just as bad as you think it is
MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST
Drivers in the Washington area spend an average of 102 hours in traffic delays each year, nearly double the national average, according to
a report from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. That translates to about $1,800 in lost time and fuel for each D.C.-area commuter.“It’s no way to live. It’s bad for the car.
It’s bad for the roads. It’s bad for
the environment. It’s bad for your health.”
Tracey Johnstone, board member of public transit advocacy groupBY OVETTA WIGGINSMaryland’s presiding officers
and its attorney general on
Thursday announced the mem-
bers of the nation’s first drug
affordability board, but it’s un-
clear when the panel’s work will
begin because Gov. Larry Hogan
(R) has not released the money to
pay for it.
The governor’s decision not to
release funding for the new board
is part of a protracted and bitter
battle between Hogan and the
Democratic-controlled legisla-
ture over budget priorities. Earli-
er this year, the legislature ear-
marked $245 million for dozens
of programs, including school
buildings and rape-kit testing,that the governor so far has re-
fused to fund. State lawmakers
set aside $750,000 for the drug
affordability board.
A Hogan spokesman said the
governor is looking for ways to
staff the board “without a need
for new funding,” including
“working with our Health De-
partment to stand up the board.”
The General Assembly, hoping
to rein in drug costs, passed legis-
lation to create a drug affordabili-
ty board that would cap the costs
of certain prescription drugs
when purchased by state and
local government employers. If
successful, it could be expanded
to other employers. The board’s
decisions to set caps would have
to be approved by the Legislative
Policy Committee, a panel of top
state lawmakers.
On Thursday, state Senate
President Thomas V. Mike Miller
Jr. (D-Calvert), House Speaker
Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore
County) and Attorney General
Brian E. Frosh (D) named mem-bers to the board.
Jones and Miller jointly named
former secretary of health Van T.
Mitchell as the chair of the panel.
Mitchell is a former lobbyist and
member of the House of Del-
egates. He served as health secre-
tary for almost two years under
Hogan.
“I’m thrilled to see Maryland is
taking the lead on tackling this
issue and welcome the opportu-
nity to work toward a long-term
solution that will reduce pre-
scription drug costs for all Mary-
landers,” Mitchell said in a state-
ment.
Joining him on the board is
Eberechukwu Onukwugha, an as-
sociate professor in the Depart-
ment of Pharmaceutical Health
Services Research at the Univer-
sity of Maryland School of Phar-
macy; George S. Malouf, an oph-
thalmologist; and Gerard F. An-
derson, the director of the Johns
Hopkins Center for Hospital Fi-
nance and Management.
[email protected]MARYLANDDrug a≠ordability board lacks funds
Hogan has yet to release
money for new panel,
first of its kind in nationN0698 2x10.5Business
‘America First,’ foreign firms last? Foreign
enterprises operating in the U.S. are growing uneasy
about President Trump’s rhetoric, which some fear
could lead to a slowing of much-needed foreign
investment in the economy.Arts & Style
‘Old Town Road’ to success: From TikTok smash
to Billboard record-breaker, a by-the-numbers look
at how a little-known artist with a delightfully strange
song managed to game the system and win the
summer.Travel
Quiet Glacier: Millions visit Montana’s Glacier National
Park every summer, but the best-kept secret among
locals is that the ideal time to visit is in the fall, when
the crowds are gone.Sunday Savings
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Some stories may not run due to breaking news.The Magazine
The party
crasherBill Weld is
running against
Trump in the
Republican
primary—and
betting heavily
on the wild-card
state of New Hampshire.