Transportation Impacts of the 2013 Federal Government Shutdown in Northern Virginia

This paper investigated the impact that the 2013 United States federal government shutdown had on the transportation system in Northern Virginia. Transit ridership data before and during the shutdown were provided by three transit agencies operating in Washington, DC, and its Northern Virginia suburbs. A month of pre-shutdown road volumes and travel times were collected for comparison with the 2-week shutdown period and 2 weeks after the shutdown. As expected, roadway volumes, high occupancy vehicle (HOV) volumes, and transit ridership all saw reductions during the shutdown, with impacts being larger in the second week of the shutdown than the first week. The modes that saw the largest impacts were HOV and the local bus service in the counties surrounding Washington, DC. This is likely unsurprising since these modes are often used by work travelers for their daily commute. Changes were more modest for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) system, arterials, and freeway general purpose lanes. During the first week, volume changes were often not statistically significant on these facilities. The second week saw similar trends of around a 3 to 5% reduction in daily travel on both the roadway and WMATA systems. Reductions in average travel times as well as improvements in travel time reliability were also observed during the shutdown. However, these benefits were more significant for morning commute trips than evening commute trips as well as for general purpose lanes than HOV facilities. After federal workers went back to work, volumes largely returned to normal. However, some of the additional volume seen at midday during the shutdown was still present soon after the return to work, suggesting that the midday behavior changes took longer to dissipate. The post-PM peak period and weekends after the return to work showed some higher volumes than the pre-shutdown periods, suggesting that some recreation or leisure trips may have been postponed during the shutdown and took place after the return to work.