When I talk about the Beltway Conspiracy, I don’t mean an insider Washington political conspiracy. I mean the Beltway itself is a conspiracy. If you’ve ever been to Washington, D.C., you will recognize that I speak the truth. If you haven’t but intend to visit, let this serve as a stern warning. Take taxis. Ride the Metro. Under no circumstances should you ever attempt to drive.

Unfortunately, as a resident, I didn’t have that choice. When we moved to the Washington area 20 years ago, we settled in a close-in suburb, an area commonly referred to as North Bethesda. It was technically just outside the Beltway, but definitely had an “inside the Beltway” attitude. Nearly all our neighbors worked for branches of the federal government – FDA, NIH, AEC, SSA, DOA, DOD and so on.

One of the first dilemmas for new arrivals, besides figuring out all those acronyms, is figuring out how to get downtown. The anatomy of Washington involves wheels. The state-name streets radiate out from the center like spokes of a wheel, unlike in Lawrence, where the state-name streets run north and south like God intended. Also, there is no rhyme or reason to the order of the state names, unlike Lawrence, where I am unreliably told they go from east to west in the order in which they were admitted to the Union, as the Bostonian founders intended.

Intersecting D.C.’s spokes are lots of circles, the biggest one of them being the Beltway itself, a huge NASCAR track of a circle skirting Washington. Now here’s the thing: If you get on the Beltway, you can go forever and never see a sign directing you into Washington. You are just up to your own devices to decide where to get off and attempt entry. Georgia’s a good choice, but only if you automatically know to stay in the right lane and veer off onto 16th Street, which moves relatively fast until it hits the White House. Connecticut will do it, but not efficiently. Ditto for all the other choices. That’s because Washington doesn’t believe in left-turn lanes or left-turn arrows. Of the two lanes, the right is always blocked by trucks unloading crap, the left blocked by hesitant left-turners – kind of like politics in general in the nation’s capital.

Eventually we discovered that the best way to get downtown was to take the George Washington Parkway, which follows the Potomac River on the Virginia side. Then just take whichever bridge you want – Key Bridge, George Washington, Roosevelt or the 14th Street Bridge. But woe be unto you if you want to retrace your steps back to Maryland. When crossing back over the bridge, you won’t see a sign letting you know how to get onto the George Washington Parkway. That would be too easy. I once asked a city official why they didn’t mark the exit to the Parkway with a sign identifying it as such. He said that “George Washington Parkway” was too long to fit on a sign. I said, “Why not just say GW Parkway?” He said, “That wouldn’t be precise.”

Washington loves precision in everything other than running the country.

However, on that same too-long-a-name-to-mention Parkway, there is a sign for one of the exits, saying George Herbert Bush Center for Intelligence. Somehow that was not too long to fit on a sign. By the way, never, never, ever take that exit. It leads to a little booth at which, if you appear hesitant or the least bit inquisitive or don’t show the necessary badge, you will be arrested (but that’s another column).

I have not even mentioned all the other hazards for Washington drivers – the many one-way streets and how they change directions without notice, or the street closures for orange security alerts, parades, protests or for the POTUS and his entourage when they’re out and about.

Back to the Beltway itself. After 20 years of traversing the hated circle, I have come to the conclusion that the Beltway and its lack of clear signage was originally designed as a Cold War tactic. The thinking was that if the Russians ever invaded, they would be stopped by the Beltway, destined to forever circle, not knowing how or where to get off to get to the capital. Even if they eventually figured out which exit, the delay would give our DOD the time to figure out what to DO.

Furthermore, should the Beltway fail to stop them, there are the traffic circles that occur intermittently on the various spokes-of-a-wheel streets. Just when you think everything’s going great, you will encounter a traffic circle. And once you get into it, you don’t know where or how to get out, which can lead to more traveling aimlessly, this time in small circles. You may exit the circle in what seems to be the logical place and then suddenly discover you are now going northwest, when you thought you were going east. The whole thing is incredibly disorienting to Kansans and probably to soldiers raised on the Steppes of Russia.

My point: Any way you look at it, the Beltway is a conspiracy.

That’s why I love Lawrence. No conspiracies. (Except for those insane tight little roundabouts – traffic-calming devices? – which must have been designed in Washington). Straight-as-an-arrow Iowa moves logically and relatively fast. Massachusetts moves gracefully and slow – as it should in order to show off its ambiance. Tennessee and Kentucky, well OK, they do become one-way, but with adequate warning. And the numbered streets go east and west in an orderly fashion. Even out in the country, the roads have numbers and logic – 1200 E. Road or 1100 N. Road. I haven’t got those figured out yet, but I will. And best of all, Interstate 70 runs alongside Lawrence, and there are only two choices for getting off: the East Lawrence exit and the West Lawrence exit. Either one gets you into town. No fooling around. No conspiracy. No Beltway!

P.S. A disclaimer: Recently, they changed all the Beltway exit numbers and put up new signs that do indicate what exits go into Washington – which is, every single one of them. So now it’s too much information as opposed to not enough. That’s par for the course. Every solution in Washington seems to create a new problem.