THE PERFECT (TRAFFIC) STORM

“...many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” (from Daniel 12:4)

That verse from the book of Daniel is often pointed to by prophecy buffs as pointing to our day of rapidly increasing knowledge and technical advances AND of the ability to rapidly travel throughout the world. There IS a flip side to the rapid travel thing, though. If you’ve been involved in “total gridlock” traffic situations, you know what I mean!

I am not sure WHY, but this morning in the Boston area- specifically in the MetroWest suburban area- the traffic was, well, awful! There was light snow falling this morning. We maybe got an inch, or perhaps just a bit more than that, but it was snowing lightly and not really a problem. The main roads were all down to wet pavement. I’m a real “baby” about driving on snow and ice, and this stuff was FINE. No problem.

I’m off from VIP Answering Service this morning, and I had an appointment in downtown Arlington- maybe a 23 mile drive from downtown Framingham. That trip can usually be done in 45 minutes...sometimes a bit less than that. This morning it took 45 minutes to go from downtown Framingham to DOWNTOWN WAYLAND! At the most, that’s 7 miles, and I’m not sure it’s THAT far! I usually take Route 30/Cochituate Road in Framingham to the MassPike. Then I get on Route 128 (now numbered Interstate 95) and take it for a few exits to Route 2. You follow Route 2 for a couple of miles, and take an exit into Arlington. Then it’s a “hop, slip and a jump” into downtown Arlington. There was to be no hopping, skipping, or jumping to Arlington today. On second thought, I would have had FAR more success if I HAD hopped, skipped, or jumped to Arlington! The ramp to the MassPike was totally clogged and backed up onto Route 30. I decided to forego the Pike and take Route 30 to Route 128. On Route 30 I was going 3 miles per hour WHEN I was moving and that was not very much. After a half hour on Route 30, I had NOT even reached the Route 27 intersection yet! (It took a half hour to go 2 miles!) I decided to take a left onto Pemberton Street, then take a right at the end and pick up Route 27 north to Route 20 west. By the time I got to the 20/27 intersection in Wayland, another 15 minutes had gone by. There was no sense in keeping the appointment. It was already past the starting time, and I was still not even out of Wayland.

Turning around, the traffic moved a bit faster in the opposite direction, but I was driving past stopped traffic on the other side of the road AS FAR AS I DROVE! Even onto Hartford Street Natick, the traffic was all in a line and stopped heading east. It looked like “mall traffic” 2 days before Christmas. It was now almost 9:30. The snow was NOT bad. What caused all the traffic to come to a standstill for miles and miles and miles?

There is a really poor quality Grade B film from 1962 starring Ray Milland entitled, “Panic in the Year Zero”. It depicts a family trying to escape from metro Los Angeles after a nuclear attack on the city. All the roads are completely jammed with traffic as far as the eye could see. In the film, Ray figures out the only way he, his family, and their 1962 Mercury sedan can get across a jammed highway at an intersection. He gets out a gasoline can, and lights a fire. As cars are bursting into flames in front of him, he leaps into the Mercury and drives across. That behavior, as my mother used to say, is “dog eat dog”.

When you see that a very minor snowstorm paralyzes the roadways as it did this morning, you really wonder what would happen if there was a REAL disaster. I guess it really would be like, “Panic in the Year Zero”!