Tl dr This is actually the result of someone doing every bit of traffic management wrong. If everyone has up to the minute traffic data and computational precision to calculation whether it takes less time to just get in the traffic and wait it out or cut through the back streets like Hollywood movies, your local politician would probably have one less topic to bicker about at election time.
The common misconception is to point it entirely at bad game mechanics, but let’s face it – it’s your terrible traffic management that that was left unchecked, and you are just looking at the cumulation of your mismanagement. Entire city shuts down, everything goes bonkers, trucks can’t ship fuel to your oil power plant, and those wind farms just couldn’t cut it, sewerage has no power to pump poo out and you close the game.