"total gridlock" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You can use it when talking about a situation of complete traffic congestion. Example: The morning rush hour brought total gridlock to the city’s streets.
During the 1999 blizzard, ice and snow combined with Metro's constricted tarmacs, inadequate gates and jury-rigged concourse layouts to produce total gridlock.
In roadways, almost total gridlock.
Growing sales of cars and motorcycles, experts predict, risk creating total gridlock in Jakarta by 2012.
Total gridlock — with neither party able to enact any major legislation — might follow.
Problems are inevitable, with alarmists predicting anything from total gridlock on the peripheral roads to gross overcrowding on the tube.
We thought we had it bad when President Clinton and Newt Gingrich went head to head, but with Al Gore it would be total gridlock.
Since the Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives at the mid-term elections in 2010, near-total gridlock has ensued.
In addition, mirroring the situation nationally, legislatures in states such as New Hampshire and Indiana appear to be in near-total gridlock, seeming able to tackle only "essential" issues relating to spending and basic state services.
But the rulemaking still serves as a concrete example of successful policymaking by a handful of liberal senators in an era of almost total congressional gridlock.
If that pessimistic view proves correct, the two parties will have to fall back again on temporary measures and gimmicks to avert total fiscal gridlock and the risks of further economic and financial damage to the country – exactly the sequence of events that put them where they are today.
"I've several times been stuck in a traffic jam that is just total, absolute gridlock, where it doesn't move.
