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China Traffic Jam

Category: Environment

Think your commute is bad? Try a ten-day, 100km long traffic jam in Beijing.

As China announced annual vehicle sales rocketing past the US, news broke of the mother of all traffic jams on Beijing's national highway - a boom in road building in recent years has been unable to keep up pace.

Authorities in China build two coal-fired power stations a week and energy officials say that even that this furious pace, they are only two weeks ahead of demand. The stalled traffic is made up mostly of trucks and lorries transporting coal.

The road works which were obstructing traffic are necessary to repair damage caused by an increase in cargo lorries using the highway, the state-run newspaper said - they are not expected to be finished until mid-September.

State media on Tuesday reported that average driving speeds in the capital could drop below nine miles an hour if residents keep buying at current rates of 2,000 new cars a day. At that pace, Beijing will have seven million vehicles by 2015, according to the head of the Beijing Transportation Research Center.

The capital greatly expanded its bus lines and subway in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics, and work continues to open even more stations. But public transport remains crowded and many who can afford it prefer to drive cars.

What happened to the Beijing, the bicycle capital of the world?