Worst traffic jam you were in

[jakeroot]

As I've always said, you don't know winter driving until you've driven I-81 north of Syracuse in the middle of a blizzard.

My mom went to Syracuse and I remember her telling me a story about how she woke up for class one morning, and literally the only thing you could see in the parking lot was the antennae of the cars. Like three feet of snow fell and then big drifts followed. Absolutely ridiculous. And they still held class. Ha!

Trying to imagine if that type of weather hit I-5 in the NW USA...what a disaster. Thousands would die.

[Brandon]

As I've always said, you don't know winter driving until you've driven I-81 north of Syracuse in the middle of a blizzard.

My mom went to Syracuse and I remember her telling me a story about how she woke up for class one morning, and literally the only thing you could see in the parking lot was the antennae of the cars. Like three feet of snow fell and then big drifts followed. Absolutely ridiculous. And they still held class. Ha!

Trying to imagine if that type of weather hit I-5 in the NW USA...what a disaster. Thousands would die.

Welcome to Houghton, Michigan, where I went to college (Michigan Tech).  Somehow they still manage to plow the streets even with over 220 inches of the white stuff per year (Oct - May, inclusive).

There's also a reason people do not usually buy white cars in snow country.

[Pete from Boston]

Worst?  Maybe when a tanker of ammonia or something similarly unpleasant tipped over at the intersection of 495 and the Mass Pike on a Friday afternoon.  Both roads were closed going into the Friday escape/rush hour.  Took about 3 hours to get around.

Funniest?  In San Diego, when it rained for the second time in six months, causing flummoxed drivers to come to a halt as they struggled to come to grips.

[JMoses24]

For me, worst wasn't even one in which I sat in the backup directly behind the incident in question. Instead, it was a road in the vicinity.

Let me set the scene. It was Inauguration Day 2013. I took transit up to Colerain Township, Ohio to visit my then-fiancée. This necessitated use of US 27, which intersects I-275 about 12 miles north of downtown.

Well...a heavy snow squall hit at 11:15 AM. Not even 2" of snow fell. By 11:30 AM, Ohio Highway Patrol had to shut down all lanes, both directions, of I-275 at US 27 on the west and US 127 on the east, because about 100 cars piled up on the freeway.

I left Northgate Mall at 2:15 PM. It took me almost 2 hours to go 12 miles. 

[SSOWorld]

Saw plenty of em in downtown Chicago just south of the Circle.

But that's small compared to the regular jams that occur on the Hollywood Fwy and the East LA Interchange - not to mention the entire 405 to the 5 southbound from LAX through San Clemente.

[nyratk1]

I used to work for a supermarket out in Southampton, NY 10 years ago. The supermarket used to have buses that would shuttle the employees in from western Suffolk County. Normally these trips would take about 60-90 minutes. Reminder there's only two ways out there and they get congested during the summer:

- NY 27 which is limited access from western Suffolk County to just west of Southampton. it is multiplexed with Suffolk CR 39 east of the limited access portion and goes north of the main business district of Southampton and then takes over Montauk Hwy. east of Southampton.

- Montauk Hwy./Hill St./Nugent St/Windmill Lane/Hampton Rd. - usually just one lane each way. Goes through the middle of Southampton.

One summer Friday night (correction: it was a Monday) there was a benefit concert to save Southampton College (it didn't work, SUNY Stony Brook took it over a few years later) with I think Billy Joel  (correction: Rod Stewart) and some other big names. So both NY 27 and Montauk Hwy. are already congested beyond normal summer weekend traffic. Then there's a fatal accident on NY 27. It took almost 3 and a half hours to get from Southampton to Hampton Bays which normally takes a half an hour at most. Grand total is 5 hours to go from Southampton to Westhampton to Center Moriches to Patchogue.

[Duke87]

I have ended up stuck in not moving because all lanes are blocked traffic twice.

The first time was in my parents' '87 Subaru GL, back when it was still "the family car", so that dates the incident to 1995 at the latest. We were on our way home from visiting family and we got stuck northbound on the Major Deegan (I-87) in The Bronx, in the section between exits 9 and 10 where the two carriageways are at different levels (somewhere near here). I don't remember how long we were stuck for, but I do remember that after several minutes of zero movement my father turned the engine off, got out of the car, and walked forward to investigate. He came back a few minutes later saying "yeah, there's a nasty accident, road's closed".

The second time was when I was in high school, we got stuck on the Merritt Parkway during a thunderstorm because a tree fell across the road, about five cars in front of us. No one was hurt but it took about 45 minutes before the fire department cleared enough tree away for one lane of traffic to start getting by.


But at least in these cases, you turn the engine off and wait. Traffic moving very slowly is more aggravating to sit in than traffic that's completely stopped. It once took me an hour to get from exit 40 to exit 48 on I-95 in CT (8 miles). All this because ConnDOT had one lane closed for the weekend relating to construction on the 95/91/34 interchange. Ladies and Gentlemen, Connecticut!

It has also taken me an hour to get into the Holland Tunnel during evening rush hour from 7 blocks away... which is normal, and why you don't do that.

[ET21]

I-55 during rush hour and bad weather in Chicago. What normally takes about 15 minutes between LSD (US-41) and Cicero Ave (IL-50) took an hour