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Traffic is backed up as a clear Olympic lane stretches out in the distance in London, July 25, 2012. Authorities went ahead with unpopular lane closures to keep the roads and hundreds of thousands of extra visitors moving and security has been beefed up to protect the Games.LARRY RUBENSTEIN/Reuters

The 2012 London Olympics met the work-week on Monday and the transportation chaos many predicted failed to materialize.

Case in point: an afternoon trip from lunch at The Valley, home of my beloved Charlton Athletic, located in the southeast of London, took just more than an hour. One quick train connection at London Bridge Station, an outrageous number of volunteers and well-marked access points made the journey a breeze. Security for media access areas, which had been manned by the military on the weekend, were handled by the Games security staff and at 3 p.m. it took less than two minutes to clear.

In fact, Mayor Boris Johnson announced that some of the so-called 'Zil' lanes – restricted access for members of the IOC family, media and other swells – have been opened to regular traffic. "It turns out a lot of the Olympic bureaucrat types who could go in the Games lanes - the 'T3 people' as they're called - are using public transport," Johnson told the Daily Mail at mid-day. "Jacques Rogge himself today took the Docklands Light Railway, I'm proud to say, and was conveyed in stately style and comfort he'd expect on the DLR, and a lot of them are doing that and that is good news."

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