Bad traffic. Bad, bad.

So I left the office parking lot at 5:45. On the ramp to 26 east I heard it was backed up from Cedar Hills to Cornelius Pass Road....where I got on. And from Sylvan to the Vista Ridge tunnel, but that is further than I go. Plus 217 was reported as badly backed up. Ten minutes later they reported a Tri-Met bus and a UPS truck had an accident. 26 east just before the tunnel blocking the two right lanes.

Even I can recognize a losing situation. I dove off at 185th...one exit from where I got ON. That was about 6 pm. I was most of the way around downtown Beaverton when a traffic report said there was an accident 217 south south of Greenburg.... Aaargh!

I got to Greenburg via surface streets and decided to get on there since I wouldn't have very far to go to pass the accident; good bet. Less than 300 feet and it opened out. I got on at Greenburg at about 6:40. At 6:50 even, I was pulling into the gas station in Wilsonville, less than 5 minutes from our house.

Seriously, 26/217 (especially 217) are usually the bottleneck of the commute. This was about a best-case scenario for the surface streets (an hour earlier would've been much slower),and I think with the accidents (both of which were still in place when I got to Wilsonville, by the way), I would've had a 1.5-2 hour commute tonight instead. This one was bad enough!

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