Friday night I went to downtown Chicago to meet some friends who were putting on an event there. Even at rush hour, the 15-mile drive should have taken about one hour. Instead, it took two and a half hours. Fortunately, the event was delayed because some of the staff and audience were late, too.

ID 71084257 © Raul Diaz | Dreamstime.com

On Sunday, we celebrated Mother’s Day at my dad’s home. That 55-mile trek took me through downtown Chicago into Indiana in a crisp 60 minutes.

Sometimes there are accidents or road construction, but often traffic snarls really have no explanation. This makes it difficult to make plans.

For the 7 p.m. Friday event, should I have left at 4:30? If the traffic was normal, I would have gotten to my destination an hour and a half early. That’s a bit much, but if it was an important meeting, I probably would have done just that.

Chicago isn’t alone with these traffic dilemmas. Pretty much every city has similar situations.

One of my friends leaves at the same time, always. Sometimes (often) he is late, but he refuses to adjust. Another friend gives himself way too much time, is never late, but spends a lot of time just waiting. Neither of these options is too appealing. I wonder what most people do.

If only our forefathers could have expected the population explosion and built bigger expressways to handle the traffic.  Since they didn’t, I will just deal with it. I don’t have a solution, but fortunately, I have an outlet here to express my angst.

— John Wroblewski, online contributor