[center]China traffic jam: 100 km long, 13 days old[/center]


BEIJING – China has just been declared the world's second biggest economy, and now it has a monster traffic jam to match.
Triggered by road construction, the snarl-up began August 14th and was 100 kilometers (60 miles) long at one point. Reaching almost to the outskirts of Beijing, traffic still creeps along in fits and starts, and the crisis could last for another three weeks, authorities say.
In the worst-hit stretches of the road in northern China, drivers pass the time sitting in the shade of their immobilized trucks, playing cards, sleeping on the asphalt or bargaining with price-gouging food vendors. Many of the trucks that carry fruit and vegetables are unrefrigerated, and the cargoes are assumed to be rotting.
On Sunday, the eighth day of the near-standstill, trucks moved just over a kilometer (less than a mile) on the worst section, said Zhang Minghai, a traffic director in Zhangjiakou, a city about 150 kilometers (90 miles) northwest of Beijing. China Central Television reported Tuesday that some vehicles had been stuck for five days.
No portable toilets were set up along the highway, leaving only two apparent options — hike to a service area or into the fields.
But there were no reports of violent road rage, and the main complaint heard from drivers was about villagers on bicycles making a killing selling boxed lunches, bottled water to drink and heated water for noodles.
A bottle of water was selling for 10 yuan ($1.50), 10 times the normal price, Chinese media reports said.
The traffic jam built up on the Beijing-Tibet highway, on a section that links the capital to the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia. The main reason traffic has increased on this partially four-lane highway is the opening of coal mines in the northwest, vital for the booming economy that this month surpassed Japan's in size and is now second only to America's.
Although wages remain generally low, auto ownership and gridlock have grown so commonplace that Inner Mongolia authorities restrict cars' movement to alternate days, based on odd or even numbers in their license plates.
The immediate cause of the traffic jam that began Aug. 14 is construction on one of three southbound highways feeding into Beijing.
Authorities are trying to ease the snarl-up by letting more trucks into the capital, especially at night, said Zhang, the traffic director. They also asked trucking companies to suspend operations and advised drivers to take the few alternate routes available.
"Things are getting better and better," he said, but he added that the construction would go on until Sept. 17.

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************shivers**********

my worst nightmare ,

stuck in traffic

wow!

This is seriously serious

Seriously serious indeed! If this happens in Lagos, we too dey copy oyinbo sef, I hope we no go aspire to break this record

i hate traaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafic

This is fcking hysteric. . .100 km hold-up,that is like almost lagos to ibadan.wtf

And i thot Lagos was bad!

Now I'll stop dissing the traffic situation in Lagos. The world's most populated country has finally made the incredible record.

This is a pitiable disma-bisma. It is regrettably lugubrious that the country with the second largest economy . . . . . 

OP, on d day i saw dat news, it was on d 9th day of d traffic. N d next day, i heard dat it has started movin again so i don't know how it got to 13days, buh anyways sha, traffic is traffic!

the benefits of a booming economy!

be careful what you pray for . .

Na waoooo, this kind thing bad oooo and the worst thing be say dey no even get okada!!!

This is not good for china and the global weather. I hear they are approaching the 5 million mark of number of cars driven in a country. Their own disasters are just too much for a single inhabited country-Floods, earthquakes and landslides in less than a decade.

Na God go help them ooooooooooooooo

For God sake - why make a fuss out of a one off event - It is not like it is a daily occurrence similar to what we get in Lagos - Abeg the amount of time i have spent in Lagos traffic totaled together pass 1 year and that record can never be broken by any country.

And the air pollution is just as bad

kokoye:

the benefits of a booming economy!

be careful what you pray for . .

Booming economy or Overpopulation?

I remember getting stuck on the 3rd mainland bridge in the yr 2000 - a truck fell on its side.

I got out of the car . . looked for pebbles and started throwing them into the water below. Got bored goin that so I walked back to the cars behind me and started chatting the drivers up.  Other drivers got out of their cars and looked for ways to entertain themselves.  

_____________

Hurricane Rita, took me 16 hours to get to dallas from Houston - a drive that would normally take less than 4hours.

oladayo042:

Booming economy or Overpopulation?

booming economy ----> overpopulation ----> congestion -----> 16days in traffic

I remember when i just finished from NYSC camp.
It was in 2007.
I entered a small bus from Port-Harcourt to Abuja.
Just after Lokoja, we met a very terrible traffic jam.
I left the bus and walked forward for almost an hour before i got to the scene of the first accident (a tanker and a small car).
I started gisting with other corpers for about 45mins more before my bus caught up with me.
Then we moved forward small and met the second accident.
I got to Abuja by almost 3 in the morning.
There was no signal there so my parents were so worried that something had happened.

I also remember from my childhood when we spent Christmas eve on top of Onitcha bridge.
Na Christmas day when we land for village and na sleep we do throughout.
Thank God things are not as bad as 13 days in the same traffic.

For what? I would have waited and parked the car as well as possible and then proceed home to sleep, then come back to check on it later.

have it on good authority(chinese friend told me lol) that the traffic jam was planned so they could get in GBR

I heard it had a speed of 100 or 500 meters/day

My thoughts exactly

eros:

If i was stuck in such traffic, I will calmly look for a very safe spot on the road, park my car and board a bike home and if there is no bike, i will walk home.


Before man ever invented the automobile, men use their legs-mobile.

This is serious.

if labour cash person nko?
how dem go take rush am go
hospital?

SHALOM