This is the tale of one day's journey into night as chronicled by Washington Post reporters and photographers who on Thursday, Feb. 3, rode along by car, truck, van, bus, bicycle and even airplane as motorists jostled past each other to reach work and then home, and as businesses navigated through the crush to deliver products and services.

Now one of the most pervasive local problems, traffic is reshaping how the region lives and works, dominating the political debate and forcing people to weave their daily schedules around it as they ask: How tough will it be to get there?

This story was reported by Dan Eggen, David Fallis, Stephen C. Fehr, Scott Higham, Lyndsey Layton, Ray McCaffrey, David Montgomery, Carol Morello, Matthew Mosk, Manuel Perez-Rivas, Tracy Reeves, Michael Ruane, Brigid Schulte, Liz Seymour, Alan Sipress, Donna St. George, Emily Wax and Josh White.