Detours Ahead (2024)

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SUNDAY PUZZLE — Adam Wagner, of Oakland, is a creative lead at Patreon, a monetization platform for content creators. This is his 16th crossword for The New York Times, and his fifth Sunday grid. Mr. Wagner is part of a large community of Bay Area puzzlemakers. He speculates that the overlap between tech and crossword construction may be the reason for the concentration.

There’s also a lot of traffic out there, right? This eye-catching visual theme presents a set of obstacles that made me think of the self-driving cars in San Francisco that keep popping up in the news. (Shows how auto-centric I am; don’t miss the constructor notes below, if you also mentally drove through this solve.)

Today’s Theme

There are five pairs of across entries in the puzzle that comprise this theme, all noticeable for their creative decorations. 22-, 45-, 68-, 88- and 112-Across each sport a series of boxes with diagonal yellow slashes, which I reflexively recognized as barricades, the temporary type that are set to block part of a highway, for instance. 27-, 52-, 74-, 94- and 117-Across are all made completely of gray boxes; each of those entries runs one row below a yellow-and-white “barricade,” so it’s pretty clear that there is a relationship between the two entries even before you start looking at the puzzle’s clues. This is important because these clues would be very confusing without context.

Each of the clues with the barricade within has two elements, one of which is struck out. For example, 88-Across is “P̶h̶o̶t̶o̶g̶r̶a̶p̶h̶e̶r̶’s̶ s̶e̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g ̶ DETOUR: Come in handy.” 45-Across is “H̶o̶m̶e̶l̶a̶n̶d̶ s̶e̶c̶u̶r̶i̶t̶y̶ c̶o̶n̶c̶e̶r̶n̶s̶ DETOUR: Computer port inserts.”

Solve one of these entries, though, and you’ll find that the crossed-out clue actually applies. 88-Across is FILM SPEED; the letters “M-S-P-E” fall within the zone of the yellow-slashed barricade. 45-Across is US BORDERS, which are “Homeland security concerns.”

Now, check out the clues for the second set of entries: Each of them, from 27- to 117-Across, is just “DETOUR” #1 through #5. This gives confirmation that they are related, sure, but not of much assistance otherwise.