The Monday rush got off to a rocky start with a pair of crashes just before 6 a.m. on southbound 35W between 8th Avenue SE. and University Avenue in northeast Minneapolis. The wreckage blocked all but one lane for an hour and that caused traffic to jam back to Industrial Blvd.
Things didn't get any better as two crashes later in the rush at Hwy. 36 and 35W plugged up traffic on both routes for most of the morning. Drive times at one time were close to an hour from Lexington Avenue to downtown Minneapolis on 35W.
Commuters in the west metro were held up by crashes on southbound Hwy. 169. A left-lane blocker occurred at Minnetonka Blvd. and that had traffic inching along from Hwy. 610 past the scene between 7:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. A later wreck at Cedar Lake Road kept things tight.
Traffic on westbound 394 was bound up just after 8 a.m. when a three-vehicle crash blocked lanes on the exits to Hwy. 100 and Xenia Avenue. Things ground to a halt from Penn Avenue out to Golden Valley.
In Little Canada, wrecks on 694 eastbound and westbound between Rice Street and White Bear Avenue led to tieups during the middle portion of the rush. And things were heavy in the work zone of southbound 35E between 694 and I-94.
Where we didn't have crashes, congestion choked the flow on westbound 494 across the Wakota Bridge through Newport and South St. Paul while heavy traffic slowed the drive along westbound 94 into downtown St. Paul.
A reminder that the Lowry Avenue and Boone Avenue bridges over I-94 are closed for repairs until Sept. 1.
Transit ran fairly smoothly save for the one delay on the Northstar line. Metro Transit said the fourth inbound trip was 15 minutes late.
