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August 30, 2010
A Postcard from Asia
Pacific
China: The World’s Longest Traffic
Jam?
It’s been called the traffic jam of the
century, the world’s longest and biggest
traffic jam, and it has left the Chinese
government red-faced. As vehicles
crawled soporifically on the Beijing-
Zhangjiakou highway, and trucks lined up
together for days on one of China’s
busiest expressways, apart from the
overwhelming frustration of it all, the
question that arises is: just how good are
China’s roads?
Over the years, the Chinese government
has spent billions in upgrading its
infrastructure. (For more, please read our
new China BRIC report ). And the
country’s expressway network spans
more than 40,000 miles, next only to the
U.S. So why this mammoth jam? Although
the majority of the Chinese and Western
media have reported a traffic jam that has
lasted for 11 days now at the time of
writing this report, there have been
conflicting versions of the details of the
story. The gridlock apparently spans 60
miles and is caused by road construction
happening on an expressway that
stretches into Inner Mongolia – a region
of rich coal reserves that helps fuel the
world’s second largest economy. Evidence
of that economy’s resourcefulness was on
view when makeshift vendors set up
shops selling noodles and tea to weary
stranded truckers along the highway. At a
premium.
Traffic jams in Beijing are not new –
China’s capital is reputed to have the
worst commuter traffic in the world,
according to a recent IBM survey. The city
adds 1,900 new cars to its already
choking roads every day. Its grey smog-
covered skies are testimony to a city’s
colossal growth and its accompanying
effects. And a desperate Chinese
government even undertook the unusual
step of forcing cars to stay off on
alternate days depending on an ‘odd and
even’ system. That is, cars whose license
plate ends in an odd number run on one
day, and the next day, cars with license
plates ending with an even number are
allowed to be on the roads. It was this
sort of car rationing that helped keep a
fifth of Beijing cars off the roads during
the Olympics. But this massive traffic jam
of the past 11 days is not about Beijing’s
choked streets.
The Beijing-Zhangjiakou highway narrows
into a two-lane road as one inches further
away from China’s prosperous north and
into its less developed western frontier.
Economically, these regions are just taking
baby steps into the kind of prosperity
that China’s developed Eastern and
Northern provinces have known in the
past few decades. There has been a clear
drive by the Chinese government to
develop these hitherto neglected areas
and utilize their resources. Small wonder
that much of the vehicles stuck on the
expressway are mammoth coal trucks
making their way to China’s booming
Eastern provinces. Crucially, for all the
expressways it has built, China has not
managed to efficiently connect its interior
provinces to its highly populated East by
rail. As a result, this expressway remains
congested most of the time, and to a
great extent by dilapidated coal trucks,
hence the construction work to try and
repair and expand the road.
There are wider issues that can emerge
from this unprecedented traffic jam.
Concerns about China’s infrastructure, for
one. Concerns about the extent to which
it can absorb a one billion plus population
and the demands it entails. Concerns
about the growth of its economy. And
really, one immediate concern: to
transport all that coal in a better way.
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