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Alternate Routes = Alternate Traffic

MOOSIC — You could call it a mess in Moosic: Birney Avenue backed up, cars crawling at tortoise speed, and drivers discouraged, to say the least. “I...
luz gridlock

MOOSIC -- You could call it a mess in Moosic: Birney Avenue backed up, cars crawling at tortoise speed, and drivers discouraged, to say the least.

"It's aggravating. It's dead stopped, trying to go on all the side streets, and there's no beating it, no beating it at all," said Conrad Thiel of Taylor.

An early morning salt truck crash on I-81 southbound near the airport slowed up the interstate.

With all the drivers trying to avoid 81, they're getting backed up on roads like this, and it's causing just as much frustration as there is on the interstate.

"I was supposed to have an interview for 10:30, and I tried to call, and I'm still going, so I don't know what else to do," said Thiel.

It's safe to say Thiel didn't get to his interview on time.

Then there's Rich Root, who left Scranton for work in Pittston at 8:30.

"Pittston Avenue, after you get off of 81 has been blocked up all the way to here. It's 10:30 now," said Root.

All those extra minutes, hours, forced some, like Patty Partyka of Scranton, to stop and fill up on gas.

"I had to go back to south side from Montage Mountain and then come back around and go back to Glenmaura and now have to go to Pittston the back way, so it's crazy," said Partyka.

Eventually the interstate reopened, traffic eased up, and drivers got where they needed to be. But at the time, drivers didn't have high hopes.

"What time do you even think you're going to get to work now?"

"I'm hoping for noon," said Root.

Let's hope he made it.

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