Traffic chaos in NYC this afternoon. There is a terrorism alert, so checkpoints have been set up around the city and at the bridges and tunnels, and all trucks are being stopped and inspected. A cab between Columbia and E. 60th St. took 60 minutes instead of the usual 25. On return, no cabs at all were to be had and even Carmel Limo, after promising a car, called back to say the one they had dispatched couldn't make it. In the end, I found an off-duty yellow cabbie who was about to go home but who agreed to take us "not for your sake but for your mother's." We saw people trying to get cabs on every single corner we passed. I feel grateful for the decency of both the driver and Carmel (for having bothered to let us know they couldn't make it).
The subways seemed fine, but my mother is too old to take the trains any more.
Riverside Drive above about 97th St. was also slowed by barricades, no-parking signs, and what appears to be the beginning of a veteran-biker-fireman rally of some kind.