Congestion refuses to loosen its grip on northbound Hwy. 169 and I-35W across the Minnesota River bridges, even as the rush hour is supposed to be winding down. From 6:30 a.m. to the present, traffic has been jammed and crammed as motorists converge on the routes to cross the river. Crossings at Hwy. 41 and Hwy. 101 remained closed due to flooding.
Westbound 94 saw slow and go conditions from Manning Avenue into downtown St. Paul, likely due to extra traffic caused by the flooded out closure of the Stillwater Lift Bridge. It's still a 15-minute trip that is being hampered by a crash near Johnson Pkwy.
Daytime construction has the right lane blocked on westbound 394 at Plymouth Road. That kicked in at a bit after 7 a.m. and had traffic crawling from Hwy. 100 out to 494. Eastbound had a few hiccups, but no major delays into downtown Minneapolis.
The latter stages of the rush brought a squeeze to southbound 494 traffic from Bass Lake Road to I-349. The ride at present is 18 minutes.
A couple wrecks early in the rush tangled traffic on southbound 35W from Blaine to Shoreview, but overall that trip fell into the normal range with 25 to 30 minutes on average needed from the Forest Lake Split into downtown Minneapolis.
The new lane configurations were in place along northbound 35E in St. Paul and Maplewood as construction on the new MnPASS lane and freeway resurfacing continues. Both directions of 35E between Maryland Avenue and Little Canada Road are down to two lanes. That held up pretty well today after a 6 a.m. crash and stall at the Cayuga Bridge created an early hassle.
