Welcome to Washington, D.C., where the only thing moving slower than Congress is the traffic. As federal workers flood back into the city post-pandemic—because apparently, telecommuting just wasn’t inefficient enough—we’re looking at a perfect storm of gridlock. Between the return of government employees and a slew of poorly planned construction projects, commuting in the nation’s capital is about to become a real-life Hunger Games. And let’s be honest, D.C.’s leadership hasn’t exactly inspired confidence when it comes to urban planning.

Take a city that already has one of the highest vehicle congestion rates in the country, add a broken Metro system that’s somehow both dangerous and unreliable, and top it off with road closures for yet another climate protest. Voilà—you’ve got yourself a traffic apocalypse. The city’s answer? Tolls. Lots of them. Because nothing says “we care about our citizens” like charging them extra to sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

But wait, it gets better. While regular Americans are stuck idling in their cars, D.C.’s ruling class will be chauffeured around in their taxpayer-funded motorcades. You see, gridlock is only a problem for the little people. For the bureaucrats and politicians, it’s just another day of business as usual—except maybe they’ll be a few minutes late to their next committee meeting about how to make your life even harder.

What’s especially infuriating is how utterly preventable this mess is. Cities around the world have found ways to manage traffic with smart infrastructure and efficient public transit. But in D.C., where billions are spent on federal projects that often go nowhere, you can’t even rely on the Metro to get you two stops without a delay, a derailment, or a fire. Instead of fixing what’s broken, the city focuses on bike lanes no one uses and pedestrian zones that make it nearly impossible to navigate.

And then there’s the environmental hypocrisy. The same leaders who preach about reducing emissions are creating policies that force more cars onto the roads. How’s that for green? Between the endless delays and detours, your daily commute will probably emit more carbon than an entire coal plant. But hey, at least they’ll slap a climate-friendly label on it and call it progress.

Of course, the media won’t cover the story this way. They’ll frame it as a minor inconvenience or, worse, as something commuters should be grateful for. After all, this is Washington—a place where accountability is as rare as an honest budget. The chaos on the roads is just another symptom of a government that’s more interested in lecturing you about how to live your life than actually making it better.

So here’s the reality: if you live in or around D.C., prepare for your blood pressure to rise faster than the cost of living. And if you’re lucky enough to avoid it altogether, consider this a cautionary tale about what happens when bureaucracy meets bad planning. Because what starts in D.C. rarely stays in D.C.—and that includes traffic disasters.

For now, we’ll all just have to sit back, turn up the radio, and enjoy the scenic views of orange cones and brake lights. Or better yet, we could demand some accountability from the people who are supposed to be running this city. But let’s be honest, that might take longer than your commute.