(Photo: CBSDetroit.com) This traffic camera shows I-696 westbound near Rosewood, where traffic was backed up for miles.
DETROIT (WWJ) As rain came down in metro Detroit during the early Friday commute, the brake lights came on and major traffic tie-ups emerged on just about every local freeway.
Here’s a synopsis:
*Westbound I-94 was closed at 8:30 a.m. between Warren and 8 Mile Road in Detroit due to an accident. Traffic was backed up all the way to Morningside in Grosse Pointe Woods. All lanes had reopened by around 10 a.m.
*Southbound I-75 in Detroit, after 7 Mile Road, had an overturned vehicle in effect at 7:15 a.m., with the left three lanes blocked. There was stop-and-go traffic all the way from Rochester Road in Oakland County as commuters struggled to get to work on time. It was 10-mile back up, with traffic getting by in the two right lanes.
*Eastbound I-96 near Milford Road had an accident in the construction zone. Traffic was backed up nearly to US 23.
*Westbound I-696 was slow from about Southfield Road, back to Woodward in Royal Oak — another nearly 10-mile backup – as a result of an accident that blocked two lanes. The ramp to Coolidge was closed. The cause of the crash was a semi-truck that jack-knifed, busting through a concrete median and strewing debris across the roadway.
WWJ News Radio’s Vickie Thomas had advice for those caught on I-696, like she was Friday morning.”If you’re in that backup, you want to take the next exit,” Thomas said, adding it took her 40 minutes to travel one mile on I-696, from Lincoln to Coolidge in Oakland County. “It’s a real mess out here.”
One morning commuter said it took her two hours to drive from Warren to Southfield. “It was ridiculous. If you think that taking a mile road might be a good strategy, you might want to think again,” she told WWJ, adding that it was still bad out there at 10 a.m. “Personally, I would recommend just not going anywhere.”
