Is It Safe To Drive To The Beach Yet?

For those who decided to postpone their weekend travel plans until today in hopes of avoiding the initial vehicular exodus from the District, here's the current traffic scene: the Beltway looks fairly clear, despite a slow-up at the Springfield interchange and a messy morning. On the whole, traffic seems pretty smooth as soon as you actually get out of D.C. But it wouldn't be Labor Day weekend without a big delay at the Bay Bridge, now would it? The Google eye in the sky says that the holdup is due to "vehicles slowing down to look at an accident," which means that those of you heading to the shore should still budget out a sizable chunk of time to cross the Chesapeake.