Strike Snarls Traffic in São Paulo, Brazil SÃO PAULO, Brazil - Commuters sat in lines for more than three hours on Wednesday morning as Brazil's biggest city entangled itself in a record traffic jam. The trigger was a strike by workers for São Paulo's subway and commuter train system, who are seeking higher wages. At the peak of the congestion in this metropolitan area of 20 million, 155 miles of roads and highways were backed up, the city transportation authorities said. The spectacle of Brazil's business capital's being paralyzed by a single, previously announced strike prompted a new round of anger at the government's failure to invest in infrastructure and renewed concerns over possible breakdowns in road, airport and communications systems when Brazil hosts the soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016.