This past week a water main broke in the suburb of Oakdale, causing a sinkhole to open up next to the 694 Interstate, and compromising the road surface. It means that a large stretch of 694 has been closed all week while they fix it. What I find fascinating about this is how this caused a ripple effect across the east metro.

I live in the north metro and have to take 35E in to work. However, because everyone in the north metro who wants to head towards Woodbury couldn’t take 694, they have to come down 35E and then shoot down 94 to get to the far east suburbs. This means that 35E south in the mornings has double the amount of traffic it normally does.

I have a pass to use the diamond lane, however, the last few mornings, it’s taken me a good ten minutes to get on to the freeway so that I could even get to the diamond lane. They are hopeful that the road will be fixed by Monday, and I’m looking forward to things going back to normal. However, it’s a powerful sign of just how fragile our system is, and just one cog out of place can make the entire house of cards fall.