Americans who think U.S. traffic is bad should forget about getting behind the wheel in china. The China road traffic jam had piled up bumper-to-bumper traffic for 60 miles by the time it reached day 10. The gridlock has clogged a highway between Beijing and Zhangjiakou and is expected to last until road construction in Beijing is finished around the middle of September. The parade of autos inches along to the tune of about a kilometer a day. Some drivers trapped in the traffic haven’t emerged for five days. Demand for coal to feed power plants and China’s emerging consumer society has generated a surge in freight traffic that has been identified as the catalyst for the monumental gridlock.
Chinese customer demand clogging motorways
Drivers in china have learned to expect traffic jams. However, the current congestion is well-nigh intolerable, even by China standards. The Wall Street Journal reports that road construction began the traffic jam Aug. 14 in China’s Heibei Province on a major highway leading to Beijing. Accidents and breakdowns exacerbated the gridlock. Little could be done about the road 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 is a result of increasing consumption by 20 million people living in Chinese capital city.
Consequences of Chinese coal demand
A principal contributor to China’s road traffic jam conundrum is the trucks shipping coal that is burned for power to drive the world’s fastest-growing economy. An analysis by Bloomberg said that Inner Mongolia Province northwest of Beijing has emerged as China’s leading coal producer, supplanting Shanxi Province. An epidemic of mining accidents in Shanxi, an established coal-producing region with extensive railway transportation, led to a mass closure of mines by the government. Inner Mongolia has not yet developed a railway system adequate to ship the growing tonnage of coal produced there. Suppliers are forced to ship the coal with trucks via Beijing to port cities, where it is shipped to power plants in southern China.
A capitalist lesson with demand and supply
Dealing with the frustration of the Chinese road traffic jam took numerous forms. NPR reported that road rage is evidently a foreign concept to China drivers, who went for walks, played games or caught up on their sleep. Individuals sustained themselves on food sold by locals, who were making a killing peddling their wares on bicycles. The Chinese traffic jam provided an old-fashioned capitalist lesson in supply and demand. Drivers complained about price-gouging by villagers who became their sole source for food and water. A bottle of water typically goes for 1 yuan, or 15 cents. Road traffic jam vendors sold them for 10 yuan, or $ 1.50. Instant noodles that cost 3 yuan (45 cents) in the store were going for three times that.
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
