Photo by Shirley Ruhe.
Cars weaved through Arlington back streets like a spider web, in a diversion of traffic around an overturned oil truck on the American Legion Bridge on Thursday, March 27 at 2 p.m. Traffic was rerouted around the Beltway onto alternate routes. Bumpers from side streets wedged into mainstream traffic on Glebe Road and sat in the middle of intersections through successive red lights, blocking traffic on the other side of the road. A man opened his car door, ran into the dark down the block and returned to his car a minute or two later. The car was still sitting in the same location. Some people slept in their cars. One driver reports sitting in traffic on Glebe Road headed toward Chain Bridge for 62 minutes three blocks from home. Thirteen hours later, the truck was removed so traffic could reopen.