Malfunction Junction

Malfunction Junction is a derisive nickname given by motorists to a confusing, dangerous, or otherwise problematic interchange.


Ode to a road

It surely comes as no surprise

That experts both renowned and wise

Have found that as our crossroads go

One of the worst we'll ever know

Amid our borders, high and low,

Doesn't work in form or function

And goes by the name, Malfunction Junction.

Each year its victims wait in line

Fourteen-million hours in time

Wasted, trying to find a groove

Through which a car can slowly move

Drivers know it's never smooth.

And so they curse with oily unction

The highways called Malfunction Junction.

As bottlenecks go across the nation,

And this is no cause for mass elation,

Tampa is only the sixteenth worst.

Los Angeles is far more cursed.

Its bottlenecks are listed first.

So we press on with heart and gumption

Through the maze of Malfunction Junction.

—Jean Heller