Americans stuck in traffic shouldn’t complain too loudly. They should consider themselves lucky they aren’t driving to work in China. The China traffic jam had piled up bumper-to-bumper traffic for 60 miles by the time it reached day 10. Road construction being blamed for the traffic jam will continue until mid-September. Until then, the gridlock on a highway connecting Beijing and Zhangjiakou is likely to persist. The parade of cars inches along to the tune of about a kilometer a day. Some drivers have been caught in the traffic jam up to five days. The epic congestion is being blamed on a massive influx of trucks feeding increasing Chinese consumption and soaring coal demand for electricity.
Burgeoning economic climate creates conditions pertaining to gridlocks
China’s drivers are accustomed to gridlocks, however the latest Beijing gridlock is testing their resolve. A road construction project that began on Aug. 14 was identified by the Wall Street Journal as the cause of the massive road traffic backup on a main artery in Heibei Province that leads to Beijing. Congestion worsened as some vehicles collided and others broke down. Little can be done about the traffic jam, highway officials say, until the construction project is finished in about a month. Congestion on this highway happens more often than not. It’s a result of increasing consumption by 20 million people living in China’s capital city.
Shipments of coal are blocked
Demand for coal to produce electricity for the world’s fastest-growing economy has been identified as a primary catalyst for the Chinese traffic jam phenomenon. An analysis by Bloomberg said that Inner Mongolia Province northwest of Beijing has emerged as China’s leading coal producer, supplanting Shanxi Province. After a pattern of fatal accidents, the Chinese government closed numerous mines in Shanxi–a province southwest of Beijing with an established railway infrastructure. A rail transport network up to the task of shipping Inner Mongolia’s growing coal production has not yet been built. To ship the coal to power plants in southern China, suppliers have no choice but to truck their cargo through Beijing to port cities.
Motorists get real life lesson in capitalism
Drivers stranded in the Chinese road traffic jam coped in different ways. NPR reports that road rage has been absent as individuals killed time by sleeping, taking walks or playing cards and chess. Local villagers, zigzagging between vehicles on bikes, reaped a windfall selling noodles, box lunches and snacks. Motorists received a crash course in capitalist supply and demand. Drivers complained about price-gouging by villagers who became their sole source for food and water. A bottle of water that normally costs 1 yuan (15 cents) was selling for 10 yuan ($ 1.50). Instant noodles that cost 3 yuan (45 cents) in the store were going for 3 times that.
Further reading
Wall Street Journal
blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/2010/08/24/chinese-traffic-jam-stretches-60-miles-ten-days/
Bloomberg
businessweek.com/news/2010-08-24/chinese-demand-for-coal-spurs-9-day-traffic-jam-on-expressway.html
NPR
npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129395326
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