The Flood Travel Fun Never Ends

Last night while driving home from work I was making killer time. I zigged around that closed road, zagged around the other closed road, and was on track and heading for home.

When the traffic in front of me stopped.

In a spot where it has never stopped before, never mind during our current flooding crisis.

I spent a pretty significant amount of time not moving. No clue as to why, but it had to be road closure related, right?

I was in Wayland on route 126, South of where it crosses 117. I went with the assumption that the problem was caused by that intersection and I pulled out my iPhone... have I mentioned the iPhone is the greatest invention in human history? I was right near Waltham Road and I know a lot of drivers take that road regularly so I used that as my starting point. I plotted a course around the traffic light and shortly after was working my way around it.

When I reached 117 the traffic was stopped there too so I kept going and mapped out the route to the next big road that joins route 126. When I got there I made my big mistake. I should have skipped that road and mapped out a route all the way to route 2. 126 was still gridlocked. If anything it was worse than it had been at 117. I read the lips of a driver going in the other direction (the traffic was stopped heading back to 117 as well) who said that the jam I was in went all the way to route 2.

So I mapped out a route starting at the next big road on my right (there were no roads that went anywhere on my left) and waited patiently for the traffic to get me there.

After 15 minutes my patience was long gone.

Finally after 20 minutes or so I managed to turn off 126 at Baker Bridge Road. From there it was on to Sandy Pond Road and all the way to route 2. I took an illegal left turn onto 2... sorry about that... and hoped that I could get back onto my route after the light at Walden Pond. If the right turn off of route 2 at Walden Pond was clogged up I was going to take 2 all the way to route 495 and suck it up highway style. Fortunately the road was clear and I got home about a half hour later than normal.

The complete traffic jam was at least three miles long. Maybe someday in the future when all of the roads are open again I will figure it out exactly. I can't imagine anyone getting through the whole length of it in under an hour and a half, maybe more like two hours. It was a total disastrous mess.

Here's a map of it:


I can tell you love my MS Paint drawing skills. That blue line is perfect, isn't it?

Today's commute started off ambitiously. I took my camera with me because I wanted to take a photo of a baseball field on Pelham Street in Methuen. It was completely under water and the ducks had moved in. There is a park and ride right next to it and when I passed it yesterday I noticed a bunch of cars parked there. I figured I'd leave home a few minutes early, park in the park and ride, snap off a few shots, and then go to work. No luck. The park and ride is closed. All of the cars I saw are apparently abandoned. I couldn't see any good place to pull over so I abandoned the mission.

When I got to the on ramp for route 93 South I saw that Cross Street was closed and barricaded. I had a new mission! Camera phone pictures of closed roads! I got four and missed two. Let the fun begin!

We start with Cross Street in Methuen, the source of inspiration.


I drove a very long time before seeing another closed road, but when I did it answered a lot of questions. This is route 117 in Lincoln... the very source of last night's traffic fiasco. All of the cars that should have gone West on 117 suddenly had to go North on 126. Add in a two minute light cycle at route 2 and you have a 3+ mile back up that starts in Concord, crossed the entire length of Lincoln, and ends in Wayland. Nice!


I saw this one yesterday and completely forgot about it today. I think this road is called Sherman's Bridge Road. It's in Wayland.


Here we come to the source of Monday's morning woes, route 20 in Wayland. Note the one jack ass driving around the barrier. I hope he gets stuck.


And now that that is over with I can start looking forward to tonight's commuting ridiculousness.

As long as I have my GPS equipped iPhone I can handle anything! Bring it on! (famous last words)