By KAREN GOULART
The Patriot Ledger

QUINCY - How long did it take you?

That’s the question everyone was asking during and after the first major snowstorm of the season.

For many people, it was a storm to measure more by how long it took to get from point A to point B than by how many inches of snow fell.

State Rep. Thomas Calter of Kingston hadn’t planned to be at his State House office Thursday, but he popped in to grab some documents to review during the weekend.

In retrospect, he said, that was a big mistake. He left Beacon Hill at 2:45 p.m. and four hours later was just getting to Dorchester. Never did his speed top 5 mph.

Along the way, he witnessed a stopped driver who was fast asleep and another driver who couldn’t wait for a restroom.

‘‘To say it’s stop-and-go would be exaggerating; it’s more like stop and roll,’’ he said, stopped and talking on his cell phone. ‘‘But I’ve got some good CDs, a couple of newspapers ... and I’ve read through all those documents, so I’m done for the weekend.’’

Across Massachusetts drivers spent hours Thursday afternoon inching along, on roads that were so packed with vehicles that plows, where present, made little difference.

Raymond Balta of Milton was concerned for his daughter. She left her Quincy office at 2 p.m. and was still trying to get out of the parking lot three hours later. Her commute normally takes 15 minutes.

Balta said what was happening to her was ‘‘awful’’ and ‘‘a sin.’’

‘‘She’s put in a long day and I’m worried about her,’’ he said. ‘‘I hope she doesn’t run out of gas.’’

Around 4 p.m. at the Crown Colony office park in Quincy, drivers described waiting hours to move mere feet toward the Burgin Parkway. To make matters worse, frustrated drivers tried to go the wrong way on the divided road.

‘‘I just don’t have patience,’’ Yvonne Parker of Brockton said. ‘‘This is ridiculous.’’

Even though he’d only gone about three-tenths of a mile in three hours, Chris Van Vleck tried to maintain a sense of humor.

‘‘The Crown Colony complex is experiencing a minor traffic difficulty,’’ Van Vleck joked as he stood outside his car, chatting with another driver. ‘‘We’re all losing our morals.’’

On Thursday evening, Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency spokesman Peter Judge said the gridlock made plowing and treating roads difficult.

State Police were working to have abandoned cars removed so overnight plowing operations would not be impeded, Judge said.

Schools close early

Most South Shore schools released students early on Thursday. The Hull public schools and Norwell’s high school and elementary schools were among they few that didn’t.

In most local towns, municipal offices closed a few hours early.

Local police and fire departments reported several minor accidents and plenty of delays.

Weymouth police Lt. Joseph Comperchio said a slew of minor accidents had occurred in town, starting at about 1 p.m. He said police were telling drivers who called to report that they had been in an accident to simply swap insurance information unless someone was hurt or unless the damage appeared to exceed $1,000.

Canton Fire Chief Thomas Ronayne III said traffic was lengthening response times, but no one could drive fast enough for a serious accident to happen.

‘‘The first snow is the worst,’’ Ronayne said. ‘‘We’re not used to it. We’re all out of practice.’’

Jeff Larson, general manager of SmartRoute Systems, said even though there were no major accidents, minor accidents occurred on countless highways, ramps and back roads.

‘‘It’s been terrible. The Southeast Expressway was just awful all afternoon and still is,’’ Larson said Thursday night. ‘‘It’s getting better, but it’s still a really troubled commute.’’

So what happened? Last winter was exceptionally light on snow, so could hardy New Englanders have forgotten how to drive in a snowstorm?

Larson suggested that the storm’s arrival just as commuters were leaving work early, was the biggest reason for the traffic nightmares.

Trips aborted

And some people may have been a little overconfident, he said.

‘‘I don’t think people really thought it was going to be a problem, and it was. It was really a rush-hour snowstorm. ‘‘People just didn’t plan to avoid it.’’

Janet McCaulley tried to drive from Boston to work an overnight shift at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis but found the going too hazardous. She found someone to work her shift and checked into a Rockland motel early in the afternoon.

‘‘In just an hour, the roads went from being bare to being covered in snow,’’ McCaulley said.

McCaulley’s plan to sleep it out wasn’t particularly original. At the Best Western Adams Inn on Hancock Street in Quincy, weary travelers started pulling in at about 3 p.m. By early evening, just a couple of rooms were still empty.

At the Marriott on Quincy’s Crown Colony Drive, if you weren’t there by 7 p.m., you were too late to get a room and would be lucky find a spot to stand at the bar.

‘‘We’re packed all around,’’ manager Coleen Young said.

With any luck, memories of the Thursday mess will keep many people off the roads this weekend, when, weather forecasters say, we’ll take another wintry wallop.

The next storm, which is supposed to begin Saturday night, ‘‘will bring a lot more precipitation and a lot of wind,’’ Patriot Ledger meteorologist Rob Gilman said. ‘‘It will be a longer-duration event as well.’’

In other words, iyou might want to pick up some bread and milk today.

Patriot Ledger reporters Brian Benson, Lisa Campenella, Jack Encarnacao, Sydney Schwartz, Barry Smith and Kristen Walsh contributed to this report, which also includes material from the Associated Press.

Karen Goulart may be reached at kgoulart@ledger.com .

Copyright 2007 The Patriot Ledger
Transmitted Friday, December 14, 2007