Grid-lock in Vancouver after Santa Claus Parade

[spinninwheels]

I work downtown, and there are times (Vancouver Marathon, Sunrun, Triathlon) that traffic is re-routed and subsequently jammed and/or nasty. But yesterday, I've never seen grid-lock that bad.

Apparently there were about 300,000 people in attendance for the Santa Claus Day Parade, and I swear...all of them drove.

As a carfree individual, this was a minor glitch. It might have added 2 minutes to me exiting the downtown, via the Burrard St. bridge. However, the downtown nightmare for everyone else who wasn't on bike or foot, would have been chaos.

Has anyone else seen traffic this bad before, or have I usually avoided the downtown, at the right times?

[Prodigy4299]

Hearing your story makes me so happy to have switched rainy Vancouver for Copenhagen! And to be gettign around solely on a bike! :)

[woodstock]

I think you have avoided downtown. Santa Claus Parade is particularly bad. Once I had to cross the street to get to the other side to work, and was completely unable to get through the crowd. Mostly though, it's not so bad, esp since they put the bike lanes in.