Weather was not a factor in Tuesday's morning rush hour, but strategically placed crashes and construction conspired to turn traffic maps red.
The big snarls happened on eastbound 94 with a crash at the north end of the Lowry Hill Tunnel shortly after 7 a.m., and that kept traffic tight until well after 8 a.m. At present, things are moving swiftly all the way to St. Paul.
Westbound 94 drivers got caught in a standstill in Lake Elmo. A crash at Woodbury Drive had traffic stopped back to east of Manning Avenue. Once that cleared, drivers ran into another slow down due to a crash at Mounds Blvd. Both incidents happened between 7 and 8 a.m.
No relief for southbound Hwy. 100, Hwy. 169 or I-494 drivers in the west metro. Traffic jammed up during the peak of the drive and never really got in gear. It's still slow going on all three routes from roughly 36th Avenue down to 394.
Prepare for fewer lanes on Hwy. 100 Wednesday. MnDOT says a lane shift will be put in place tonight resulting in two lanes in each direction starting tomorrow morning.
Other hot spots this morning included eastbound Hwy. 10 from Anoka to Coon Rapids during the 6 to 7:15 a.m. timeframe. A spin out westbound at Main Street created a gawker effect that took a while to loosen up.
A crash on northbound 35W at 42nd Street just cleared. It will take a few minutes for traffic to get back up to speed.
