China Traffic Jam Could Last Into September

[mike r]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704125604575449173989748704.html

BEIJING — A 60-mile traffic jam near the Chinese capital could last until mid-September, officials say.

Traffic has been snarled along the outskirts of Beijing and is stretching toward the border of Inner Mongolia ever since roadwork on the Beijing-Tibet Highway started Aug. 13. The following week, parts of a major road circling Beijing were closed, further tightening overburdened roadways.

As the jam on the highway, also known as National Highway 110, passed the 10-day mark Tuesday, local authorities dispatched hundreds of police to keep order and to reroute cars and trucks carrying essential supplies, such as food or flammables, around the main bottleneck. There, vehicles were inching along little more than a third of a mile a day. Zhang Minghai, director of Zhangjiakou city's Traffic Management Bureau general office, said in a telephone interview he didn't expect the situation to return to normal until around Sept. 17 when road construction is scheduled to be finished and traffic lanes will open up.

Villagers along Highway 110 took advantage of the jam, selling drivers packets of instant noodles from roadside stands and, when traffic was at a standstill, moving between trucks and cars to hawk their wares. Truck drivers, when they weren't complaining about the vendors overcharging for the food, kept busy playing card games. Their trucks, for the most part, are basic, blue-colored vehicles with no features added to help pamper drivers through long hauls...

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China's Mega Traffic Jam Tied To Illegal Coal Trade: Report

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2010/0824/China-traffic-jam-enters-Day-11.-A-tale-of-deceit-and-criminality

.. The mega blockage – the second in two months on a stretch of road about 130 miles northwest of the capital – is a tale of deceit and criminality that speaks volumes about China’s breakneck economic development. And behind the traffic chaos stands King Coal.

China relies on coal for 70 percent of its energy needs. For years, small illegal coal mines in the province of Shanxi provided Beijing and its surroundings with a good deal of coal but so many of the mines would collapse or explode, and so many miners would die, (over 1,600 nationwide last year according to official figures) that the local authorities have closed most of them down.

That’s all very well, but China being China, the province of Inner Mongolia, to the North of Shanxi, has taken up the slack. And an awful lot of the trucks currently snarled on the G110 expressway to Beijing are carrying coal mined illegally in Inner Mongolia.

They are taking the G110, drivers explained to the daily Beijing News, because there are no coal checkpoints on that highway, so they don’t have to bribe any inspectors to turn a blind eye to their illegal loads. The roadwork is due to continue until the middle of September, which bodes ill for truckers on the G110. It will probably take a great deal longer to close down the illegal mines feeding the traffic jams.

[readmoreoften]

1. What does that mean? Does that mean it takes 24 hours to drive a 1 hour drive? Or does it mean

that all those people are stuck until September? If its the latter: wow.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. It means that there will be a 60 mile line of trucks every day, for weeks.

The trucks coming FROM "inner Mongolia" pile up behind the trucks in front of them.
Some of the trucks at the head of the line make it to their destination every day, but because there are so many trucks adding to the line, every day there is a traffic jam due to bad roads,detours, etc.
So it is not the SAME trucks sitting there for 30 days, but different ones creating a continuous jam

apparently, tho, the SAME trucks do sit in one spot for several days. Wow.

[ananda]

2. solution

They need to make both sides one way.

[Terry in Austin]

3. another solution

Re-stipe it for more lanes.

[Vehl]

4. why cant they fix it?

the authorities sure seem to be taking their own sweet time over this :o

[Ron Green]

5. China + Cars = a world of hurt.

[valerief]

6. Friggin' Rupert Murdoch rag just obfiscates instead of illuminates. nt

[Brother Buzz]

7. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

[happyslug]

9. I looked at Google Earth, and National Road 110 is a two lane road, one lane in each direction

Now a new limited access four lane road is being built right beside it (except where it goes through the middle of town, the express way avoids such town, while 110 goes right through them).

Now, also next to the Express way is a high speed electric railway. It is twice as wide as 110 and it is only two tracks. Gives you an idea of what type of highway this is. In my home state of Pennsylvania we are slowly upgrading US 22 to a four lane highway, from the three lane highway it has been since the 1950s (The third lane was a passing lanes on steep hillsides, one would end going in one direction at the same point another would start in the opposite direction, called Suicide lanes by the locals, they were known killers).

At some points along US 22, you can see three versions of the road, the new four lane highway (NOT limited access, but a divided highway), the old 1950 era two lane highway (almost all the areas with the old Suicide lanes were converted to four lanes in the recent ongoing upgrade) and the old "Raystown Highway"/ "Northern Pike"/ "William Penn" Highway (the names the State called US 22 before the 1920s when it became US 22, William Penn is still used in certain sections).

The 1950s era road was straight, but it had those Suicide lanes AND some nasty turns. The older road was designed for horse and buggy so it would wind up a mountain side, going left then right so that the horses would have an easier time climbing the mountain side. Outside Altoona is Allegheny Mountain, where the Pennsylvania Canal built its Incline to take its canal boats over the mountain in the 1830s. Present day 22 avoids the area of the Inclines and goes up through another gap in Allegheny Mountain (the same gap as the Pennsylvania Railroad went through, now Norfolk and Southern). In the 1830s, till 1929 (when US 22 was first paved) US 22, went to the left of the present road (if going West). The remains of that road still exists. Incline #8, went even further to the left (The Inclines on the Pa Canal were numbered from Johnstown to Altoona, 1 through 10). A third of the way up the mountain side the old road did a radical turn to the right so horses would have an easier time going up the side of the mountain. Incline #8 ended and the Boats were shifted to the right to go on Incline plane #7 which took the boats to Incline #7. Incline #7 and most of Incline Plane #7 were destroyed when US 22 was made four lanes in the 1940s. Incline #7 went up about where the east bound lanes of old US 22 goes at the present time. Incline #7 took the Boats to the base of Incline #6. Incline #6 went UNDERNEATH the Raystown Road by what is called the Skew arch bridge as the Road went Right to left as it winded up the mountain on a grade as easy as possible for horses. Incline 6 took the boats to the top of the Mountain where the boats were unloaded onto Incline PLANE #5 which took the Boats to Incline #5, the first incline going DOWN the west side of Allegheny Mountain. Original US 22 continued to sweep left and right till it reached the top of the Mountain and then became more straight as US 22 was on top of the Mountain. In the 1930s this was changed. The Skew arch bridge was bypassed, Incline #7 was destroyed (it had been abandoned in 1852, as had the rest of the Inclines on the old Portage railway). Incline 6 was cut in half (half up the mountain of the east bound lanes of Us 22, half to the south of those lanes). Incline 8 had been cut in 1854, where the Portage railway abandoned what is now called the Old Portage Railway (the series of Inclines) to what is called the New Portage Railway (New as in 1854 is newer than 1836). The New Portage railway built a proper railway using what is called the "Mule Show" Curve (named and built AFTER the Horse shoe curve of the Pennsylvania Railway).

I go into the above basically to point out the level of China's Highway #110. It is a two lane highway of the same type as the Raystown/Northern Pike/William Penn Highway NOT the US 22 of today or even the 1950s. No berm, one lane in each direction going through every town as its main street, with every intersection, no matter how busy, regulated by stop signs (maybe red-lights but I am betting on stop signs). If the lanes are six feet wide I be surprised. The New road right beside the old road will be a four lane limited access highway, but right now you have a converted cow path being used for heavy traffic. Thus the existing road is NOT capable of being expanded quickly. Given that construction equipment has to use it to get to various places on the new highway being built, it was a disaster waiting to happen.

Some pictures of Old US 22 and the Skew arch bridge:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=324x1746

[marmar]

10. Talk about road rage......I'm not a gun enthusiast, but that might prompt me to....

[tammywammy]

11. That's awful.

I know when my family evacuated for hurricane Rita, they went 1 mile and hour for a long stretch. It took them 24 or 25 hours to make a normally 5.5 hour trip.

Hopefully people aren't also running out of fuel.

[unblock]

12. here's how you do it:

i presume that it's just a 2-lane road, one in each direction.

turn it into a one-way road, with both lanes pointing the same direction. that's right, you can only go from east to west. but you've got 2 lanes, so the traffic should go smoothly. then the next day, reverse it. both lanes go west to east. again, traffic runs smoothly.

how do you manage the transition? simple, you get two "closer" vehicles to close the road entirely and then follow the last vehicles through, making sure there are no stray vehicles left. when the closer vehicles reach the other side, they open the road for vehicles coming through in the other direction. when the first vehicles reach the other side, guards open the road to exiting traffic flow the other direction.

if there are access points along the way, either the signage has to be EXTREMELY clear or the closer vehicles have to move concrete blocks about to prevent traffic from coming on in the "wrong" direction.

there are a few cities that have this arrangement for some highly used lanes during rush hour.

[Kringle]

13. I guess transport by rail is not good enough for some people .nt

[Morning Dew]

14. One guy was stuck in that jam so long

he was greeted at the end by the Chilean miners.

Ba dum dum

Thank you very much, I'll be here all week.

Try the veal.

Tip your server.