Ahhh...a quick passing storm went through eastern MA tonight. 8" of snow fell from 1pm to 8pm. No big deal, I left work at 1:30, got to my town an hour later - a mere 30 minutes longer than usual when taking back roads. I got onto the street I live off of, which is a feeder road from downtown to both the Mass Pike (a.k.a. Massachusetts Turnpike a.k.a.Rt-90) and Rt-95.
And there I sat. Over the course of the next 3.5 HOURS to go 0.4 miles. There was no where to go in either direction, it was a total jam. I should have listened to my instincts and ditched my car in a local restaurant's parking lot and walked home but nooooo I was too dumb to do so. I ended up leaving the car further up the street (and an hour of sitting in traffic) in the parking garage of the local medical center with their permission. I'll get it early in the morning. Without real snow tires I never would have made it to the parking garage since their access road was virtually unplowed. Ah yes, the winter combo of a Swedish car and Finnish snow tires is tough to beat. I then walked the rest of the 1.1 miles home.
The problem was actually due to a hill next to my apartment building. For some reason, while it's not that steep a slope, it gets extremely icy and there are frequent accidents and spinouts there in winter. Those going up the hill were just helpless and were sliding all over both lanes, so people trying to come down the hill (the direction I wanted to go in) could barely pass by. Look people: all-season tires (with the exception of the Nokian WR) are not adequate in real winter weather. And it snows every frickin' year.
Verily, this was the worst commute I have ever experienced. Total travel time: 5 hours. Normal travel time: 25 minutes.
2 comments:
yeah, it just rained here. Alas on account of your storm, the Ron Paul Air Raid won't be flying by our part of the country this weekend.
I miss Massachusetts and the snow, but I don't miss the fucked up commute when we would get a bad storm.
I worked in Woburn for a while and drove from Brockton or Bridgewater. Ick. Once had something like a foot of snow on the ground and the commute took 3 hours, rather than 45 minutes.
I feel your pain.
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