Well, that ALMOST worked...

[dreamshark]

It's snowing out there, as you undoubtedly know if you live in the Twin Cities metro, and don't care if you don't. By 3pm it was looking like whiteout conditions from our 2nd story windows out at the edge of the Shakopee prairie, and my boss started suggesting that people leave early. Well, okay, when you put it that way. I looked at the traffic map and talked to a few people and plotted a clever route home that was intended to evade the really serious traffic messes. It's my first time driving home from the new building in bad weather, so I haven't figured out the Secret Suburban Evacuation strategy yet.

By the time I got a route figured out and the snow off my car it was almost 4pm. The roads were terrible - lane markers hidden under drifts of snow, and slippery as hell under the snow. According to the MNDOT map northbound traffic on 169 wouldn't be a problem across the river, but after that all the choices were long stretches of congested red. I-35W southbound was predictably backed up, but northbound looked pretty good. The question was how to cover the 5-7 eastbound miles. I decided to try Old Shakopee Road, a fairly good-sized thoroughfare that more or less parallels the Minnesota River on the north bank.

Sure enough, 169 was moving along pretty steadily at about 35mph. To my relief, Old Shakopee Road eastbound wasn't terribly crowded (although the westbound lanes were stuck in frozen hell). There are lights and stuff, but I was still making about 25mph as I came in sight of the big intersection where Old Shakopee, 98th Street and I-35W more or less come together. It was maybe half a mile away. I crossed Penn, and it was all over. I was stuck in a giant parking lot of cars waiting in line for I-35W southbound. The way the streets come together there is no way to get past this lineup when it extends that far. Even though I wanted to go north, I had to inch along for 20 minutes or more until the streets completed their merge and I could slide out of the line. I-35W northbound was EMPTY, although so treacherous that I still didn't want to get out of 3rd gear. In a rare moment of good sense, I decided to stay in the left lane until I got past the intersection with the dreaded I-494. Good plan. The right lane was backed up a good half-mile. But the left lane zipped me right down to 46th street with no further impediments except for the snow itself.

I was soooo close to finding the perfect snow emergency route home. Maybe if I turned north on Penn next time...

Comments

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

That sounds awful. I'm glad you made it safely home to your computer.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

OH, it wasn't so bad. Especially compared to LJ friends posting about 3 hour trips. It was just a little annoying to come so close to the perfect back route home and then blow it at the last minute.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Maybe next time you could cut North of Old Shakopee before you get that close to 35W, and take a less-busy entrance. I think there's one at 80th or 82nd.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Like I said in the post, turn left on Penn. Then I think I could come in to the 98th St. entrance at an angle that would allow me to bypass the southbound traffic. The problem was not that the 98th St. entrance was unusually busy. The problem was that traffic was not moving on I-35W southbound. Practically nobody was trying to get on I-35W northbound. This is the advantage of the so-called "reverse commute."

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I am kind of a pro at commuting to the burbs. I wish I could work downtown - just hop on a #18 bus and let somebody else do the driving. But no, my kind of work is only found in places like Eden Prairie and Maple Grove and *shudder* Shakopee.