Submitted by Luke on Tue, 06/07/2016 - 02:17
The 6th of June was the first day of Metro's emergency "Safe Track" repair program. Construction is being done in a staged manner and started with only delays and not the coming closures. This still put enough extra cars on the road to put some intersections dangerously close to literal gridlock, as some drivers got caught in the intersections as lights changed. Drivers are told to never, ever enter the intersection until there is room to get back out of it, but will disregard this if they fear turning cars will otherwise take the space. If adjacent intersections get blocked this way, the result can be a spreading nightmare of traffic that cannot escape until the gridlock is taken apart from the outside in.
Video showing drivers blocking the box during severe traffic on 16th st about 5:30PM June 6, 2016