A broken water main clogged Route 1 traffic yesterday afternoon as thousands of students, faculty and staff slowly filed out of the campus in the first of a pair of delays on the road that day.
Construction crews had a northbound lane blocked from about 3 to 7 p.m., said Maryland State Police Sergeant Steve Sugg, who witnessed the delay from the station on Route 1.
“Traffic was completely stopped on Route 1,” sophomore Chris Arias said in an e-mail interview. The economics major said he approached the traffic clog as he drove back to his Seven Springs apartment after classes.
Facing the throngs of cars held up on the road, he said he quickly turned around.
“Luckily, I escaped that traffic,” he said.
Less fortunate students said the trip from the campus to Seven Springs took 40 minutes to an hour.
“I never really saw traffic that backed up on Route 1 before,” senior physiology and neurobiology major Rabia Ali in an e-mail.
Later that night in an unrelated incident, three cars collided on Route 1 at its intersection with Quebec Street near the Taco Bell shortly before 8 p.m., further holding up traffic, Prince George’s Police spokesman Henry Tippett said.
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