Driving to work along southbound 101 to Redwood City today, I was wondering why the traffic seemed to be flowing so smoothly. Then I noticed backups at on-ramps in San Mateo — some of the on-ramps had 10 or 20 cars stewing behind the metering lights.

Seems CalTrans turned the metering lights on for the first time for this morning’s commute — only to discover malfunctions in at least two. Backups were so bad at the Hillsdale on-ramp that cars were backed up onto city streets.

Watch out on Feb. 20, when metering lights on northbound ramps will be turned on.