Travellers Greeted By Traffic Troubles Heading To LaGuardia Ahead Of The Holiday Rush

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The worst traffic of the holiday season was expected to hit the Tri-State Area on Wednesday and Thursday.

AAA says the city will have the worst congestion in the nation with drivers seeing travel times triple between 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. as evening commuters mix with holiday traffic.

Wednesday evening, some folks were forced to get out of their vehicles and walk along the shoulder of the Grand Central Parkway to get to LaGuardia Airport.

A less than desirable option, but when you get stuck in traffic you may be left with no other choice.

"Took us two and a half hours to get here," traveler Jewel Adams told CBS2's Valerie Castro. "We sat in front of Terminal B for about an hour, so we decided to walk so we won't miss out flight."

Many jumped out and began to walk or even run to the terminals, if they so much knew which way to go.

"Every agent is telling me something else; 'Go around, take a bus'," one man said. "You can't get any accurate information from anybody."

Some weaved their way in and out through the wave of cars. One woman ditched her car service when traffic was at a standstill.

"No one has any information," she said before running away mid sentence to catch her flight.

AAA projected the traffic congestion, but at LaGuardia, new traffic patterns meant to detour around ongoing airport construction are also to blame.'

It was a similarly miserable sight last month around Thanksgiving. The Monday after the holiday saw travellers traversing every which way to escape the gridlock.

Port Authority police were directing traffic during the height of the rush on Wednesday, but it seems things didn't ease up quite fast enough.

"It was kind of crazy," TJ LaDuca said. "I was stuck just over the bridge for a little while until my Uber driver let me out and said 'yeah, it looks like the road is closed'."

LaDuca was heading home to Syracuse for the holidays, depending on whether or not he actually made his flight.

Elsewhere, security has also been tightened at spots around the city. Cars were randomly stopped and searched at the RFK Bridge heading into Manhattan.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo says it's pro-active response after two terror attacks on the city in the last six weeks.

"I want to make sure that when the public sees this activity, that they're not alarmed. We don't have any information that has caused us to increase security. This is just out of an abundance of caution," Cuomo said Tuesday.

AAA says 107.3 million Americans will travel between Saturday and New Year's Day, the highest on record and a 3.1 percent increase from last year.