i think an old roomate of mine had it figured out.
he's from a town of <2000 people, like many calgarians, and would commute from the very east side of the city to downtown every day.
he figured out over the years to leave at a certain time before the traffic got real bad on highway #1, and through careful study and contemplation his theory is that when weather's bad, people ALL try to get to work earlier and thus rush hour shrinks from 7:00->8:30 to 6:45->7:45 or something - can't quite remember.
so the same number of commuters are on the roads for a smaller amount of time, thus jamming them up. tailgating, accidents, tempers, etc. all get worse, conditions of course exacerbating things.
interesting theory.
according to him, if everyone simply left at the same time and didn't try to 'beat the traffic because today's going to be bad on the roads' that most of this insanity would go away.
perhaps he's onto something.
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