For the second straight day, commuters on southbound 35W from the northern suburbs spent extra time on the roads. Traffic moved well below the posted speeds for most of the morning making the trip from the Forest Lake Split a 30-minute affair. As we wrap up the rush, that drive time has dropped to about 22 minutes.
The middle and late portion of the rush saw a crush on westbound 494 and Crosstown through Bloomington and Edina even though we had no accidents to tangle things up. That is still a slow ride at this hour.
A traffic jam developed on westbound Hwy. 610 near Hwy. 169 as a crash took out two lanes for a brief period around 7:30 a.m. while eastbound Hwy. 212 drivers navigated around a wreck at Mitchell Road around the same time.
Current trouble spots include a car that went off the ramp from northbound 35W to Lake Drive. A squad car is on the scene.
Aside from congestion, the rush didn't produce many accidents. Transit providers didn't report any problems this morning.
That's it for Thursday. I'll be back Friday with more live traffic reports. Coming up on the blog today, the traffic impact of next week's All-Star Game at Target Field. Brace yourself Minneapolis.
