For a decade, Mayte Escudero-Richardson had the perfect commute: She would drop her children at school at 8 a.m., pick up two strangers at a Springfield parking lot and drive on the 395 Express Lanes to arrive at her Southwest Washington job by 9 a.m.
She saved time and money using “slug lines,” a system of casual carpooling that for nearly five decades has facilitated the commutes of thousands of Northern Virginians headed to jobs at the Pentagon and the nation’s capital.
Then came the coronavirus pandemic, and the long lines of riders and drivers that organically formed at park-and-ride lots nearly disappeared. Even as more workers return to offices, “slugs” aren’t returning as quickly. Employer policies allowing more flexible schedules and remote work have reduced the number of riders and drivers while the threat of transmissible viruses have left others wary about sharing a ride with strangers.
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Escudero-Richardson on a recent morning drove alone to her Wharf office because she found no passengers with whom to share the ride. The trip that usually takes 15 minutes in the 395 Express Lanes took nearly an hour on the regular lanes of Interstate 395. She didn’t want to pay the $21 toll, which would have been waived if she had passengers.
“It’s disappointing,” she said. “I’m hoping that people will come back and the slugging will return.”
Three years into the pandemic, the once-popular slug lines along Interstate 95 are still ailing, much like transit systems in the Washington region that have yet to see ridership rebound to pre-pandemic levels. Loyal “slugs” have kept the system alive using social media to coordinate carpools while scouting new locations to connect with riders, such as stops for express buses. Some test their luck at the old spots, at most finding only a few scattered “slugs” waiting.
Drivers with at least two passengers can use high-occupancy toll lanes free in express lanes on interstates 66, 95, 395 and 495. The option offers an incentive for drivers to pick up passengers at the slug lines, reducing their commute time. Passengers, meanwhile, get a free ride and save on fares, as well as time spent at a bus stop or on Metro.
On a recent morning, the site of the region’s oldest slug line — Bob’s Slug Line off Old Keene Mill Road in Springfield — was sleepy. Unlike in the old days, there were no lines of passengers waiting and no drivers shouting their destination. The parking lot that Fairfax County leases for slugging at Springfield United Methodist Church had a dozen parked cars as the morning commute wrapped up, a contrast to the pre-pandemic days when it and nearby lots would fill by 8 a.m. On this morning, only three prearranged carpools left the site for the District.
In many cases, slugs now exchange phone numbers to secure a carpool, still meeting at the same sites while following standard slugging rules: no eating or drinking, no controversial conversations, no use of cellphones. The prearranged system requires waiting for a particular ride, while previously, a passenger would hop into the first car that showed up.
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“Now we have to talk to each other,” one commuter said as she waited for her driver and another passenger to arrive before 8 a.m. “The old system worked perfectly.”
Experts say the slugging culture in Northern Virginia is unlikely to disappear, although it might change or take time to return to its pre-pandemic bustle. About 38,000 Washington commuters slugged at least one day a week in 2019, with the average slugger participating four days a week, according to a report commissioned by the Transportation Planning Board of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG). There were as many as 30,000 slug trips on any given weekday, mostly originating along the I-95 corridor in Virginia. Slugging represented about 1 percent of commuting trips.
Those numbers plummeted as the pandemic struck, while the share of carpools — whether in slugs, van pools or among households — has declined significantly. Carpools were about 2 percent of Washington-area commutes in 2022, down from nearly 5 percent in 2019, according to the COG’s State of the Commute Survey.
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The 2022 survey found family carpools became more popular while the more casual “slug” carpools had declined. The survey showed a 20 percent increase in household carpools compared to 2019, while the share of carpoolers who said they used casual carpools declined from 20 percent in 2019 to about 4 percent in the 2022 survey.
Nicholas Ramfos, director of COG’s Commuter Connections program, said the survey shows some residents are still concerned about commuting with strangers.
“It’s just going to take time to get the [slug lines] ridership back up,” Ramfos said. “It’s just like commuter bus and trains and vanpool. They all suffered because of the pandemic.”
At the start of the pandemic, when traffic volumes were down, it was easier for commuters to drive alone. While traffic congestion has returned, some commuters say they would like to return to slug lines but acknowledge the challenges of more flexible work schedules. Even before the pandemic, Mondays and Fridays were slow for slugging because of federal government telecommuting policies.
Kalai Kandasamy, a longtime slug line organizer and advocate, said he hopes more investments are made to improve the system, such as signage and dedicated slug line sites, to help preserve a system that debuted around 1975 during the Middle East oil crisis, alongside the opening of high-occupancy vehicle lanes for car-poolers.
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The name “slugs” derives from the word for counterfeit bus tokens. Bus drivers began to refer to those commuters — who lined up at bus stops looking for a free ride not but necessarily to take the bus — as “slugs.”
Some say the system began with a single driver who wanted to use the free HOV lanes asking riders at a bus stop if they wanted a ride. Others say it was born out of frustration with gridlock and flourished through word-of-mouth.
Slugging has particularly thrived in Northern Virginia, with its highways that offer an HOV option to the edge of downtown Washington. The addition of high-occupancy toll lanes in the past decade, promising traffic-free rides, further boosted slugging. The practice has also started in other cities, such as San Francisco and Houston.
Before the pandemic in the Washington region, slug lines thrived along the I-95 corridor, with locations as far south as Fredericksburg and Stafford County. The Pentagon, a popular destination for sluggers, has had official “slug” zones for decades. Before the pandemic, efforts were underway to extend the slugging culture to the Interstate 66 corridor, where new express lanes allow carpools to ride free and avoid congested general lanes.
Kandasamy, a Woodbridge resident who no longer uses slug lines because he works remotely full-time, said the system has been reliable. It served more riders than the Virginia Railway Express, which carried about 18,000 daily passengers before the pandemic.
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Kandasamy said he hopes the lines will return as more people come back to offices and commuting patterns begin to settle. The more recent prearranged system takes away from the ease and convenience of slug lines, he said.
“When you organize, then it becomes the carpool kind of thing where people have to wait for somebody to show up and people treat it like an Uber, asking you to drop you off at their office,” Kandasamy said.
Tom Biesiadny, Fairfax County’s director of transportation, said he expects the slug line setbacks will be temporary. Recent requirements along I-66 to have three vehicle occupants instead of two in HOV lanes should serve as an incentive for people to slug, he said. The opening of new park-and-ride lots in major corridors also will encourage more carpooling, he said.
At the old Bob’s Slug Line site in Springfield, Fairfax is building a six-level, 1,000-space commuter parking garage that will house bus operations and incorporate two commuter slug line loading zones when it opens in December.
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“If people are going back to an office, particularly downtown, slugging can be a very effective way and a very affordable way,” Biesiadny said. “And because it’s a very practical way of commuting, I do think we will see a reinvigoration of slugging.”
Hasan Shah, 43, is hopeful for such a return. He grew up in Springfield and has used slug lines since 2006, hearing about them from his father. In recent weeks he has tried to find a ride to downtown Washington, where he works in advocacy, but had few leads after posting on a slug lines Facebook page. He has resorted to driving more often, unless his wife can drop him off at the Metro, he said, fearing that some former slugs are giving up.
Escudero-Richardson, who is a director of sales at a D.C. hotel, said she too hopes the lines will return. Her husband, a former slug lines passenger, is taking Metro these days. She still has to take her children to school, then needs passengers to take the HOV lanes for a quick, toll-free ride. She recently discovered a bus stop where passengers wait for an express bus to the Pentagon. Some have been willing to hop into her car.
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“I can take two passengers to the Pentagon,” she told a group at the bus stop on a recent morning, she recalled. “And then one guy said, ‘will you take a third?’ And I said ‘yes.’”
She dropped them off at the Pentagon and continued across the bridge to the Wharf.
“For me, that’s my solution because these people need to go in,” she said. “It literally takes me three extra minutes and I still save 45 minutes on traffic.”
correction
An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that a regional survey found a 56 percent increase in household carpools compared to 2019. It was a 20 percent increase.
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