How to cripple my city in three easy steps.

1. Bring a glitzy festival to the Inner Harbour -- in this case, the Tall Ships festival, which travels up and down the west coast annually. This had the effect this afternoon of clogging traffic from the Johnson Street Bridge to Fort Street along Wharf Street; we were moving at about 5 km/h and tempers were pretty high because once you make that turn, there's no easy way out.

2. Bomb threat! Well, at least a suspicious package -- found on a BC Transit bus during rush hour. This shut down part of Admirals road -- one of the major routes in and out of the dockyards and naval base plus a popular route to the Western Communities.

3. When all else fails, roadwork. This morning and into the afternoon the Bay Street bridge was reduced to a single alternating lane, blocking traffic a looooong way. I think I may have idled away as much as an eighth of a tank of gas while waiting. Adding to the congestion is that the nearby area is semi-industrial so there were more than the average number of dump-trucks, cement trucks, and 5-ton box trucks merging in and out of traffic.