The first of April is synonymous with pranks, but traffic in the Halifax area was no joke on Monday morning as it was closer to chaos.

The closure of Quinpool Road for a bridge repair dumped thousands of extra cars onto other streets and created back-ups all around the city.

When the massive traffic jam started, it was still dark and very wet.

By 7 a.m, drivers were getting ticked off.

“Oh, I'm unhappy with this,” said one motorist as they leaned out their window. “They gotta make more ways into town somehow.”

The traffic jam lasted for more than two hours as tens of thousands of cars funneling into the Armdale Roundabout had one less road to access.

Commuters were warned that Quinpool would be closed and Chebucto Road would likely become a bottleneck unless motorists switched to other options such as carpooling.

“The answer was to carpool and go with friends,” said one man. “But most people aren't going to do that.”

Some drove bikes, including Neil Cooper who fired up his motorcycle and then promptly got stuck in gridlock.

“The 102 was backed up pretty good,” he said. So were Bayers Road and Robie Street as it was bumper to bumper in a city-wide standstill.

Halifax Regional Municipality spokeswoman

Brynn Langille says traffic patterns are being monitored closely.

“There is obviously still an adjustment period underway,” she said.

HRM staff will stay on site in the coming days during both the morning and late afternoon commutes.

“Up to a week or so for people to fully settle into their new patterns,” said Langille.

If changes in routes are required, Langille says some detours may be altered.

But until then, there is likely to be plenty of frustration during the repairs that are expected to last four months.

According the city, 25,000 motorists drive on Quinpool Road each day and roughly 23,000 use Chebucto road each day.

The city didn’t count how many vehicles were on the road this morning, but if was 48,000, or even close to that number funneled into Chebucto Road, one gets a clear mental image as to why the traffic back up was so severe.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Paul Hollingsworth.