The longest queue of traffic stretched 32 miles on the M25 motorway between Watford and Reigate.
LOS ANGELES — The warnings had been grim: a knot of traffic stretching from the Pacific Ocean to downtown Los Angeles.
The traffic stretched back all the way into the nearby provinces of Hebei and Inner Mongolia, it added.
Noting that traffic stretched back into Westchester, he said, "I think people are trying to get an early start".
At the border crossing in Nogales, Ariz., the normal 30-minute wait across the six lanes of traffic stretched to 45 minutes or more.
On the second day of the festival, the traffic stretched back to the George Washington Bridge in New York City - two hours' drive and 90 miles away.
As we came up to the bridge, we saw the jam: a solid line of traffic stretching from the New Jersey Turnpike to the bridge's toll plazas, then east all the way across the Cross-Bronx Expressway and north into Westchester County.
"I'm very happy," Mr. Ali said at the end of his day as he threaded his cart through the traffic, stretching out his arms and glancing toward the sky as if thanking the heavens for his good fortune.
So it was a shock last Saturday when I turned out of the supermarket parking lot into an immobile line of traffic stretching as far as I could see.
Skidding and sliding vehicles were central to hundreds of blockages in the two counties, where queues of jammed traffic stretched up to 30 miles and motorists suffered delays of more than 10 hours.
And then, like an actor preparing for his entrance, the young man positioned his dancing stick-cum-crutch at the elbow, assumed a broken-down posture and began his well-rehearsed hobble into traffic, stretching out a hand for alms.
