Care to Watch Them Suffer in Traffic?

Travelers sit in traffic on Interstate 90 in Chicago Friday, as they hit the road for the start of the Labor Day weekend. AAA auto club projected a nearly 10 percent increase in the number of Americans traveling this Labor Day holiday over the 2009 holiday.  (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

We'll know the numbers shortly, but the projections are heavy: 35 million people -- about one in 10 Americans -- taking a trip at least 50 miles this weekend.  It's a massive movement that puts transportation and infrastructure so powerfully on our minds that the president is addressing it today, promising $50 billion in spending on roads and rails.

So how does the system cope with all this?  We figured it could be a fun, webby waste of time as you surf around this holiday.  Just as the East Coast fixed on watching Hurricane Earl roll in on Friday, check in on the Chicago commuters, crammed in on Friday (above).  Are they suffering, now, in bumper-to-bumper?  How many miles of red is there on the Seattle map, as ferries dump to highways and buses and the mighty I-5 carries drivers home?  How is the weekend of Amtrak cancellations along the East Coast playing out with the trip home today?