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I think you mean congestion. Gridlock is when cars attempt to cross an intersection during a green light even though there is too much traffic to pass completely, leaving them stranded mid-intersection when the light turns red, thereby blocking the perpendicular traffic from crossing the intersection when their light turns green (literally locking the grid).

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plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
That’s blocking the box, gridlock is just bumper to bumper traffic in any condition.

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- pjwestin@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  No, that’s definitely gridlock, blocking the box is just another name for it.
  
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  - plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    The term gridlock is also used to describe high traffic congestion with minimal flow (which is simply a traffic jam), where a blocked grid system is not involved. By extension, the term has been applied to situations in other fields where flow is stalled by excess demand, or in which competing interests prevent progress.
    
    If there is a specific term, why continue to use the dated term that also means something else?
    
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    pjwestin@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I don’t know what to tell you, I’d literally never heard of," blocking the box," until you said it. Meanwhile, Gridlock is so ubiquitous and well understood that, as your quote points out, it’s a universal metaphor for a blockage or impass.
    
    Also, if we just accept this vague use of gridlock, (I’ve never heard anyone is it for anything other than actual gridlock, but whatever) you realize that this quote explicitly states that some people use, “gridlock,” and, “traffic congestion,” interchangeably, meaning your claim thar, “gridlock,” means “stop and go traffic,” not, “contested traffic,” is flat out wrong, right?
    
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