Posted on 08/23/2010 8:03:34 AM PDT by MissTed
MAINTENANCE work, wrecks and broken down cars caused a nine-day traffic jam in China that stretched for more than 100 kilometres, Chinese daily newspaper The Global Times reported. The traffic jam, on the Beijing-Tibet Expressway between Beijing and Huai'an, began on August 14 when thousands of Beijing-bound coal and fruit trucks jammed the roadway. A major cause of the congestion was maintenance work on the nearby National Expressway 110, which had suffered damage from heavy vehicles. The roadworks work forced drivers to use the Beijing-Tibet Expressway instead. Coupled with several minor accidents and broken down cars, traffic has now been stranded on the expressway for the past nine days. The traffic jam is expected to last for almost a month with maintenance work on the National Expressway 110 not due to be finished until September 13. Drivers were reportedly playing cards to kill time on the roadway. Residents who live along the roadway were reportedly profiting from the traffic jam, selling food to stranded drivers at inflated prices. "Instant noodles are sold at four times the original price while I wait in the congestion," one driver told the Global Times. "Not only the congestion annoys me, but also those vendors." Others joked that concerts should be held along the roadway to keep drivers entertained. About 400 traffic police are on duty by the roadway to maintain law and order.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Can anybody imagine the road rage that would take place if that happened here.
China is powerful, but also fragile.
This can’t be true. China does everything better than we do. /sarcasm
Imagine trying to call your boss to tell him you’d be a little late getting to work... a week and a half late!
And I thought that the construction on 290 was bad.
lmao
Is Zero on vacation in China this week?
And Obama yelled, “I mean, just look at this infrastructure!” during a visit to China.
I remember when the trains were snowed over and people were stranded for days. Of course, China won’t report on any deaths.
lol - wouldn’t surprise me. It’s hard being the “Vacationer of the United States”.
Powerful, but headed for disaster thanks to that idiotic one child program they instituted.
While we think of an emerging middle class, it's important to remember what most of China is comprised of: A bunch of illiterate dirt farmers so divorced from technology that the majority have never even made a telephone call.
I spent time in China and Tibet in years past. I don’t know how things are now, but their road building philosophy and expretise in the past was dreadful.
In Tibet for instance, where there were roads, they were usually unpaved, and major “highways” literally made use of rocky mountain rivers as avenues through gorges.
A large industry in perpetual road construction/repair had built up: each year they “built” the same poorly constructed roads where the previous ones had inevitably been washed out during the rainy season. Everywhere along the roads were the myriad graves of workers killed in the “construction”. The concrete and other materials were the worst I ever saw in any country.
In China, autos were just starting to replace bikes. Again, the materials and construction and expertise were able to withstand bike traffic, but the increase in cars quickly began to ruin the roads. The patches and repairs did nothing permanent to change that.
I Imagine, outside the major cities, littlle has changed. Note that they are hualing coal in trucks!
Is this the same China that Obama was telling us has an awesome infrastructure we should follow the example of? That China?
That’s what China gets for killing all female babies.
Divine retribution.
Karma.
I wish that kind of poetic justice would also happen to North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, etc.
The first was a major accident on I-95 north/east of New York City about ten years ago. It was on the northbound side of the roadway during the evening rush hour, if I remember correctly. There were no fatalities in the accident . . . but because it involved multiple vehicles and some large trucks, the EMTs and fire department personnel on the scene had to do some very delicate work to extricate some of the injured victims. The road was closed through most of the night, and the police arranged to have northbound drivers back their cars up to the previous exit to find an alternate route. The process took so long that the cars closest to the scene ended up staying there all night, and the news reports the following day included interviews with some drivers who slept in their cars all night and then simply turned around and drove back to work the next morning.
The second one was the infamous Valentine's Day Blizzard in 2007 that shut down stretches of I-78 and I-81, stranding some drivers for more than 20 hours. A CBS news report on that incident is linked below:
Senate Banking Committee passes the " Livable Communities Act "
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=70475
Ever hit the jam at the Kobe Junction during Obon or Golden Week? It gets in the 10s of kilometers IIRC. I remember giving up and sleeping at a service area then leaving at 3:00 a.m. in hopes of missing the worst of it.
My record is 9 hours.
Residents who live along the roadway were reportedly profiting from the traffic jam, selling food to stranded drivers at inflated prices. "Instant noodles are sold at four times the original price while I wait in the congestion," one driver told the Global Times
That's still less than what one would pay at a baseball game. They're getting a bargain.
And I gripe if I'm held up for 20-minutes or more. Holy cow!
Did you see some of the griping in LA when Obama blocked traffic in West LA for more than 3 hours with no warning to the local residents? I hope all those people remember at the ballot box ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.