Passengers at Portland International Airport (PDX) faced missed flights and frustration early Wednesday morning, when a significant traffic jam along Airport Way caused delays rolling back to Interstate 205. According to KGW, over a dozen travelers were caught in the snarl, with the standstill forcing some, like a passenger named Alex, to abandon their rides. “I started to see people running and traffic wasn’t moving, so I had to get out,” Alex told KGW. The tie-up was in part due to construction work announced earlier by the Port of Portland, which was anticipated to invite delays through the end of the week.
As closures compounded the usual flow of vehicles, the Oregon Department of Transportation reported on its TripCheck service that the congestion led to a slowdown of over an hour. Although KATU highlighted the fact that the traffic was backed up as far as the Interstate 205 offramp, the relationship between the delays and construction activities was not immediately clear.
The Port of Portland, in a statement obtained by KOIN 6 News, said they were unsure if the gridlock was directly due to the construction efforts. However, they remained hopeful that normal traffic flow would resume once their projects concluded for the day…