Monday afternoon, workers put the first shovel in the ground to kick off a three-month project to fix a cracked water main in the Georgetown palisades area of the District.

Continue reading

The project is going to have a big impact on traffic.

“Another water main break right? It's going to be a parking lot around here. It is now,” fears Cam Bennett.

The areas affected are made up of two- and four-lane roads that snake around the campus of Georgetown University up to palisades, down on to Canal Road almost to Virginia and Maryland lines. As workers dig down to repair the 48-inch main they'll have to gobble up lanes of traffic.

In the first phase of the project the eastbound lanes of Canal Road will be closed while the crews dig. That stretch of Canal is just two lanes as it is and during rush hour on a good day, traffic moves at a snail’s pace.

“It's going to be miserable,” says Matt Givig. “It's really going to make things difficult.”

Pete Wilner said there’s little you can do about fixing water breaks. “If it is something that needs to be done than it's something that needs to be done,” he said.