Manhunt complicates commute

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The only thing that was moving near the OmniRide commuter bus terminal in Woodbridge on Monday were helicopters and police dogs.

Two men were killed in the parking lot of the transit center about 11 a.m., one of them a bus driver for the service.

The center at 14700 Potomac Mills Road is home to the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission, which provides local and commuter bus service in Prince William County.

Police immediately put the transit center under lockdown as they searched for the shooting suspect.

That meant parking commuter buses that would normally begin picking up passengers at the Pentagon shortly after 2 p.m.

“Those trips will be delayed indefinitely,” said PRTC spokeswoman Christine Rodrigo. “All of the buses that were out of the yard this morning, we will still be able to use this afternoon. But the ones that are parked here we cannot move.”

Just before 3 p.m. the agency activated its emergency service plan, and told all riders in the District to take Metrorail to the Franconia-Springfield and West Falls Church stations, where PRTC’s MetroDirect buses pick up and drop off passengers.

There, PRTC commuter buses that were not under lockdown and buses from neighboring transit agencies waited to take passengers to Woodbridge and Manassas.

Under the emergency plan, the buses were free to all riders.

A portion of the lot where the shooting took place is also a commuter lot — where riders park their cars and catch a bus into Washington.

Those who parked there Monday morning came back to find that they couldn’t get to their cars.

“It is frustrating because those crimes scenes take several hours to process and I wasn’t prepared for that,” said James Harge of Woodbridge.

Other riders waiting for the bus at nearby Potomac Mills mall said they had also felt the effects of slow service due to the shooting.

“I left at 12:05 today to get to work at 2 o’clock and it’s a little after two now, so you can see that I am already over an hour late,” said Tony Jones of Woodbridge.

Jones said he spoke with some of the bus supervisors near his stop and they told him there wasn’t much they could do to speed up bus service.

This is the second time in less than a week the transit agency has activated their emergency service plan.

When a security guard was shot and killed at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, police cordoned off a portion of 14th Street, making it impossible for the PRTC commuter buses that serve the area to pick up their passengers.

Staff writer Uriah A. Kiser can be reached at 703-878-8065.