Today's rush hour was quiet in terms of crashs and incidents. An early morning car fire on Hwy. 169 was the one exception. A fully engulfed vehicle in the southbound lanes caused a gawker slow down that lingered for about 45 minutes around 7 a.m. Traffic crawled from Canterbury Road up to 494.

Elsewhere the typical slow and go traffic added time to the commute on 35W southbound and eastbound 394, but it was nothing that made drivers pull their hair out.

Today, a new project on University Avenue gets underway and that will bring lane closures between Rice Street and Hampden Avenue. Crews will temporarily close lanes to remove and replace concrete intersection panels where cracks have developed. Walsh Construction will reconstruct intersection panels at its expense due to contract specifications requiring replacement of faulty work on the Green Line.

MnDOT also begins a road project on I-94 at Hwy. 25 in Monticello. Look for non rush hour lane closures.