Mr. Butler and other merchants were upset last year when road reconstruction and the installation of underground utility lines made most downtown streets impassable for more than six months.

They were rendering the narrow, cobbled streets almost impassable.

Facing brutal cold, impassable streets and blackouts in vast swaths of town, they told everybody on Wednesday to leave work, go home and stay there, unless they were "essential."

She'd not yet seen that area, its kinked one-horse-wide streets impassable to groundcars, though she'd flown over the strange, low, dark blots in the heart of the city.

During snowstorms, for example, creaky snowplows never seemed to work, leaving a thaw as residents' only defense against impassable streets.

The storm had shut down public transportation and made streets impassable for anyone not traveling in a limousine with a snowplow escort.

The building, like Southern Rep's, was spared, but because of curfews and impassable streets, the company has lost audiences and money.

Victory was within his grasp, and now his troops had been stopped again by impassable streets and murderous fire.

On this December day, 104 families trudged through nearly impassable streets to get 260 bags full of apples, rice, canned chili and other foodstuffs.

Varanasi's narrow, normally impassable streets could be easily navigated.