Wednesday's commute resembled something a mid-winter trip to the office as wet roads and crashes conspired to create lengthy delays on most metro mainline routes.

A crash and a stall on northbound Hwy. 100 at Excelsior Blvd. and Minnetonka Blvd. respectively led to a tangled mess that persisted from 7 a.m. to the present. That parking lot led to 25 minute drives from 494 to 394, while southbound traffic crawled from Hwy. 100 to the Crosstown.

That was the first of many crashes that plugged up the roads. Others on westbound 94 at County Road 17 in Lake Elmo and a city bus vs. truck crash at Mounds Blvd. had drivers spending twice as long on the roads as normal.

Northbound Hwy. 169 saw delays with crashes at Old Shakopee Road and Anderson Lakes Pkwy. while Cedar Avenue was abysmal from County Road 42 up to the Crosstown. That trip was at 30 minutes during the peak of the rush.

Both southbound 35E and 35W from the Forest Lake Split to the respective downtowns ran slower than normal. Crashes and heavy traffic bogged down I-494 in both directions through Bloomington.

In Anoka, commuters were held up by a spin out crash on eastbound Hwy. 10 at 7th Avenue.

The Green Line experienced a power failure between Raymond Station and downtown Minneapolis just after 7:30 a.m. The outage lasted 10 to 15 minutes and caused trains along the rest of the line to run tardy.

As we wrap things up, delays persist on Hwy. 36 through Roseville, west 94 into downtown St. Paul and on northbound 35W from Crosstown into downtown Minneapolis. Expect long travel times on Crosstown in both directions from Cedar Avenue to Hwy. 100.

Rain will continue this morning, so turn on your headlights and keep the speeds down.