DC can be the same way. Sometimes you get lucky. The unpredictability is what gets you. We have an inside joke about it around here in the defense community. If you have an 11 AM meeting at the Pentagon, do you leave at 6 AM and maybe get there right on time or 4 hours early, or do you leave at 9:30 and arrive right on time or 3 hours late? Impossible to really know. Also, if you aren’t back in the car headed north by 2:45 at the latest, you may as well stay for dinner and leave at 8.