By Aaron C. Davis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 11, 2008

Traffic heading into the District along New York Avenue NE will probably remain gridlocked today as crews rebuild a stretch of the road that slid off an embankment early Friday when heavy rain and tornadoes battered the region.

A football field-length section of the right inbound lane crumbled and gave way just before the Brentwood Road exit, said Karyn Le Blanc, D.C. Department of Transportation spokeswoman. She said that it was unclear why the ground became so unstable that it broke apart but that "at this point, we're fairly confident we will reopen before rush hour on Monday."

Crews closed the lane Friday, but yesterday, the situation still caught motorists by surprise.

Traffic slowed to a crawl before the D.C.-Maryland border, and cars inched along from South Dakota Avenue to Kendall Street as three lanes merged into one.

"I cursed a little bit," said D.C. resident Shanetta Richardson, 29, who sat in traffic in her silver Jeep. "There were a lot of horns and people stuck in one place [who] couldn't move."

A sign on Route 50 warned drivers to take alternative routes but provided no detour option.

New York Avenue was the scene of one of several bottlenecks giving motorists headaches yesterday.

On the Capital Beltway, traffic on the outer loop backed up fairly steadily for almost a mile before Telegraph Road while the Virginia Department of Transportation worked to shift three of four lanes in preparation for the opening of the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge. Cars heading toward the bridge were funneled into one lane before Telegraph Road, which VDOT officials said will continue today. Traffic quickly cleared as the lanes reopened before Route 1. Officials had hoped to have two lanes opened by yesterday but said rain slowed the progress.

Drivers in the city also had to contend with road closures early yesterday for the annual National Police Week 5K.

Le Blanc praised a city contractor for helping prevent bigger problems Friday on New York Avenue. "He called it in, and engineers immediately went out," Le Blanc said. "By the time they got out there, more of it was giving way."

City engineers had been concerned about the site for more than a week, she said. During excavation after the collapse, workers found an abandoned water main, but engineers could not determine if that, the heavy rains or some combination of factors caused the ground to become so saturated that it compromised the road's foundation, she said.

About 50 truck loads of dirt were needed to rebuild the right lane, she added. Crews were also installing additional drainage under the road and planned to repave the center and right lanes in the 1100 and 1200 blocks of New York Avenue today.

Staff writers Tom Jackman and Philip Rucker contributed to this report.