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Call it the Great Divide. Or maybe, the Great Traffic Jam.

The Queensway will be closed for construction all weekend through much of downtown Ottawa, sending thousands of vehicles onto surface streets along marked detours — one of them a 10-kilometre tour of numerous neighbourhoods — and, undoubtedly, also along other streets as drivers look for alternative routes.

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The 48-hour shutdown began at 11 p.m. Friday, but the biggest crunch was expected to come with the Ottawa Senators’ home game against the Arizona Coyotes Saturday night. The hockey club is urging fans coming from the east to give themselves extra time or take a bus to the Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata.

Photo by James Park / Ottawa Citizen

The delays were already noticeable through the day, even though traffic volumes were well less than the usual 160,000 vehicles that use that stretch of Highway 417 daily (averaged over weekends and weekdays).

Still, police reported no major blockages or accidents, in part due to the advance warning that had been issued.