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SOMEWHERE ON THE G6 HIGHWAY IN INNER MONGOLIA – It seemed like a good, if basic, plan for covering the story.
"The traffic jam is hitting cars going south in the direction towards Beijing so we'll be okay, driving north, filming it along the way from the other side of the median," I repeated one more time to no one in particular as we drove out towards Inner Mongolia.
Except that there was no traffic jam.
Certainly not the one dubbed "China's monster traffic jam" on Twitter and by Western media. Not the one that reportedly lasted ten days, spanned two provinces, stretched over 60 miles, and spawned a local economy.
Virtually overnight, local authorities had managed to disperse the congestion – about 120 miles northwest from Beijing – so by the time we reached the area, all we encountered were the garden-variety traffic jams here and there.
The birth of a jam
The mega-backup on National Expressway 110 (or G110) had begun on August 14. ("Expressway" is a rather exalted name for what at times, far away from the capital, was no more than a two-lane dirt path.)
Even under the best circumstances, the G110 is susceptible to gridlock. Every day, thousands of trucks, carrying eight tons or more, bear down on the expressway. The G110 also attracts commercial vehicles because it's free – unlike the main highway which charges by vehicle weight and distance travelled.
All this traffic has, ahem, taken its toll on the road, and earlier this month authorities decided to undertake repairs on a section close to Beijing.
By Adrienne Mong/NBC News
China relies on coal for seventy percent of its energy needs.
Feeling the commuter pain
Closing off parts of the thruway ground everything down to a snail's pace. Some sections reported speeds of no more than a third of a mile a day, if at all.
This being China, a local economy sprouted up almost immediately, with hawkers selling food and drink to motorists trapped on the road. Price gouging inevitably followed, provoking widespread complaints –surprisingly more so than the traffic jam itself, which many people were resigned to accept.
"There's always traffic," was the refrain several drivers told me.
As residents of Beijing, we couldn't be more sympathetic.
Congestion has spiked in the past year despite efforts to manage the flow, prompting most of us in the NBC News Beijing bureau to become hardcore cyclists. A recent study by IBM revealed that workers in the Chinese capital suffer the worst "commuter pain" – more than those in Mexico City, Johannesburg, or New Delhi.
And the pain could become more acute. State media reported this week that average driving speeds could dip below nine miles an hour if Beijing continues to add 1,900 new cars a day to its roads.
But back to the expressway from Inner Mongolia, where rail transport also compounds the problem. Not enough rail links tie the interior to the coastline cities and the south.
And there's a rapidly growing need for rail transport. The main cargo being ferried out from Inner Mongolia?
Coal.
Energy needs create bottlenecks
China, after all, still relies on coal for 70 percent of its energy demands. Moreover, the newly minted world's second-largest economy needs energy to keep fuelling its growth.
And Inner Mongolia has become the new coal-king province, overtaking Shanxi Province – where thousands of dangerous illegal mines have been shut down over the past couple of years in a government crackdown.
So, as one report argues, the real culprit here isn't roadworks or inadequate infrastructure.
"It's all coal being transported here," a truck driver called Zhao from Harbin told me.
We were standing near a toll booth on the main highway running from the provincial capital Hohhot back towards Beijing. Zhao makes around ninety dollars a trip driving his coal truck. As he spoke, his arm swept across the expanse of coal-carrying trucks behind him.
And by virtue of the fact they're willing to be inspected on the main highway and to pay a toll, those vehicles could be presumed to be carrying coal from legal sources. According to the Beijing News, trucks transporting coal from illegal mines are taking the G110 because they can avoid checkpoints run by cargo inspectors.
Chasing the coal
So here we were, hurtling north and west, towards what my colleague Ed Flanagan had dubbed the "abyss" of China's breakneck economic development, only to run into one of the country's other formidable quirks: marshalling the resources of a police state.
Literally.
Everywhere we drove, police manned toll booths, weighing stations, and highway entrance ramps – all part of a massive and successful effort to get rid of the monster traffic jam.
So by the time we'd arrived at the 60-mile stretch, there was no sign of an unusual backup.
But there were plenty of trucks. In fact, traffic barreling down the G110 and the main highway, changing lanes at high speeds, was enough to make me - normally a bit too blasé about passenger safety (at least my own) - buckle up in the back of our minivan. That and the fact that 49 percent of all licensed drivers in China last year only got their permits within the past five years.
There were also plenty of pockets of congestion, especially anywhere where trucks were being funneled off the highway onto back roads.
And there's still always the possibility a monster traffic jam will re-emerge. The roadworks are expected to last until mid-September before more lanes will open up.
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Really need to drop about 20 nukes on the earth eating machine.
Yes, let's put the "sleeping giant" back to sleep. India could stand a similar solution.
yea man, let's totally kill a billion people because they aren't white!
Wow! Nuts do grow in clusters!
In terms of oil/petroleum consumption, China consumes 5.733 bbl/day per 1,000 people.
United States of America: 68.672 bbl/day per 1,000 people.
Who's the Earth Eating Machine now?
In terms of oil/petroleum consumption, China consumes 5.733 bbl/day per 1,000 people.
The United States of America consumes 68.672 bbl/day per 1,000 people.
Who's the Earth Eating Machine now?
Growing pains for a growing economy.
flash back to the "50's" the interstate highways developed as a military necesity.
I am a US citizen living west of Beijing. I drive this route every Friday for a weekend stay in Beijing. For sure, there a a lot of trucks. But as with many things reported about China, the story was over-blown. It normally takes 3 hours to return to my home from Beijing and 4 - 4.5 hours to get to Beijing, so it means the truck traffic adds about 1.5 hours to the trip. I have never seen any trucks stopped for 9 days. I've never been to LA, but certainly it looks like traffic is terrible there as well. Driving in and around Beijing is not that bad, as long as you are smart about it - i.e. stay away from rush hour.
What happened to the China's gigantic traffic gridlock? The story about China's huge traffic jam is in fact a propaganda by the oil flippers and producers who wanted to slow down the recent price decline of crude. In its naked form, the news about China's traffic jam is another play on the "China Card" by the Oil Flippers. It is amazing how the media has become the number one propaganda machines of the big conglomerate corporations.
Today, the media is controlled by a handful of conglomerate corporations that have taken position on oil futures. Readers should be skeptical about news article that promotes the idea of higher future crude prices.
Gobux, You either don't know which road the news is talking about or you didn't commute there recently. The monster jam that happened there recently was not only reported by this website, it's reported all over the world. Are you telling me they are all lying and you are the only one who knows the truth? Beijing's traffic has been terrible for many years as everyone knows. It's bad all over the town, not to mention the pollution. No one likes to deffend it. I was there last year. It's no where near LA which seems to be haven to the people in Beijing. Each time my plane landed back in LA from Beijing, I felt being back to paradise. LA's air and traffic condition beat anywhere in China, hands down, although losing to most cities in US.
Even if the story was overblown..It was still a fun read...I remember when driving to Toyko took three hours and I lived less than forty miles away..could be there in an hour on the train...Sounds like China needs more trains. The US sure could use them too...
What awful writing. So was there a traffic jam or not? How did they fix it? Flowery journalistic crap.
I'm with you Nancy....what the he!! really happened?
agreed....
Dr. Who must have fixed it.
coal is very dirty. to bad china doesn't have all the extreme environmental rules the USA has .maybe the air quality of the whole earth would benefit .oh ya i forgot its just the Usas job to clean it up
Bullseye!
No environmental regulations means cheap production and lower costs of transportation. It also means China is generating more than its share of pollution in the world. Not fair, but the truth.
Geee, just think, if we had even more extreme environmental rules, we could destroy even more american jobs.
Send Al Gore and his minions over there to straighten out the pollution problem along with all their other problems. I can just picture old Al riding in on his white mo ped yelling stop the global warming and pollution. I wonder how many feet inside the border he would get before his arrest and incarceration to a coal mine?
Richard Jensen: Better you lose your job than my kids lose their health.
China leads the world in research and development in alternative energy. No kidding.
Yes, China is erecting windmills like crazy. If we don't do the same, we could be importing windmills from China in a few years. So China is pushing ahead on all fronts. We could use more coal in America without putting more CO2 in the air if we built more green algae processing facilities along side of the coal-burning plants. The green algae convert CO2 into O2 while producing huge amounts of green algae that can be turned into bio-diesel, methanol, cattle feed or plastics, among other possible products.
Wouldn't it be a shame if we became energy independent from foreign oil producers by converting CO2 into bio-diesel and methanol from our huge supplies of coal?
^ Gobux - the story may have been overblown for that section, but I just drove from Beijing to Taiyuan today on G5 (Jinkun Gao Su). Just past Shijiazhuang, trucks and cars were at a complete dead stop for over 50 kilometers headed towards Beijing. As we were driving in the opposite direction (thank god!) the only thing we could think of was that drivers headed south from Inner Mongolia were trying to avoid traffic on G6. That area is very hilly and the overloaded trucks already have a difficult time getting through. Mix in the construction and break downs ... ouch.
Not sure how I am driving back yet ... any suggestions Gobux?
Brian - I think the truck traffic is controlled going into BJ - trucks are mostly only allowed during the evenings - except for food/vegtable deliveries and other essentials. I find it is better going into BJ if you time it to arrive before about 16:00 - that way you miss the trucks and most of rush hour.
PS - small world. I live in Shanxi province - about 3 hours north of Taiyuan.
Let's keep polluting the world and ruining the lungs of the earth in the Brazilian rain forests. Where is our air going to be manufactured?! Glad I don't have kids or I'd be worried.
Another reason why a centralized economy is inefficient. Trains are a much more practical way of transporting coal or other ores about the nation, yet recent articles lead us to believe the Chinese government is more interested in showy high-speed passenger trains and uber-busses than practicality.
I disagree with this comment. When Eisenhower developed our national highway system he hardly stopped to think how he can get it done with free market principles. He used central planning and a command-and-control approach to get it built in the interests of national security. The enabling legislation was actually called the National Interstate Highway and Defense Act of 1956.
Making the central planning/command decision to get this done facilitated private sector economic activity, of course... which is why China is trying to do the same thing now in creating a national highway system. They're pretty much just copying what we did half a century earlier.
Also, the Chinese HSR system is a dual-use freight and passenger system. The press likes to cover the passenger rolling stock and ignore the freight stuff, but it's just as if not more important of a planning influence on network design. More importantly, their thinking (which they've made pretty explicit) is that passenger HSR will free up capacity on traditional rail lines for freight haulage. At present, those systems are congested by prioritized passenger services which could, in the future, be diverted to dedicated HSR lines.
Given it was a "Defense Act" is why many sections are overbuilt for normal commercial traffic. It's so they could accomodate tank carrier traffic (if not tanks themselves) and serve as backup runways for jet fighters. I'm not sure if the B-52 was considered.
.. when I was working on a project in Shanxi, a few years ago I was once caught for 14 hours of standstill congestion on that same road. We hung out and watched cows. Farmers sold us bottled water, which they keep on-inventory as a sure money-maker. Apparently, it's not uncommon and still a couple of years away from being fixed. Remember that much of their infrastructure dates from a time when very few people had cars at all (just a few short years ago), and they're just starting to get caught up. They got wealthier faster than they could build roads to keep up.
So you think some of those enterprising farmers will start opening McDonald's and Motel 6 franchises some day?
Make that "thousands of trucks driven by Asians" and then you realize the traffic nightmare.
^Gobux - it seems we will drive right past you! We are in PingYao tonight. Tomorrow we are headed to Taiyuan to meet friends, then on to Huhehaote for a few days.
If you are in the area, should consider to stop in Datong to see the Yungang Grottoes... pretty amazing what was done so long ago. There are only 3 such grottoes in all of China.
Thanks! We can check it out on the way back from Huhehaote. I think that I will take a pass on going through Beijing on the way back home.
The Chinese came and built our railroads maybe our Socialist unemployed workers can immigrate to China and build their roads. If China paid their low wages and Obama and company subsidised the difference we would not have such high unemployment or high population levels. We could also build a land or floating bridge from Mexico to China which would solve our illegal immigration problem. I am sure with his communication and foreign policy skills that Obama could convince the Chinese to go along with the effort.
hehe. unfortunately, China has their own growing illegal immigration problem now (from the Mekong states and, to a lesser extent, from Africa) - in some regions, illegals are coming to dominate agricultural employment, as newly rich Chinese don't seem too keen on the morally redeeming drudgery of farm labor anymore, for some unfathomable reason. I think there was an AP piece on this site from a while ago with a story about how one profiled border patrol station in Yunnan deported nearly two thousand illegals in a single day, when the reporter was there. So I really doubt they want ours.
I lived in Northeastern China for 10 years when freeways were a new thing and drivers thought they were on the Autobahn. I almost prefer a nice cozy traffic jam so that those wild drivers might not crash into me at such high speeds.
I had one helacious 'accident' where my driver crashed into the back of a truck parked with lights off in the middle of the two lane freeway at 4:00 AM and at about 20 degrees below zero. We hit him doing 70 mph and had 5 near fatalities in our car. I was the only one who eventually fully recovered. After 20 years, the rest have been rebuilt and rehabbed to where they can say a few words and eat. That kind of 'accident' is very common.
I refer to those roads rightfully as 'death valley'. To this day, I still get sweaty palms when I drive on them.
Then all ofyou should come to Luanda...Angola...about 4 hours on average for a 8km distance at most hours......
Go back and read Adrienne Mong's articles about China. They often give a positive spin or the point is lost in flowery or colorful characterizations. Chinese Americans have a very tough time covering China objectively. Understandable, perhaps, but still shoddy journalism.
As usual, people in the West are being propagandized by the western news media.
I have spent a lot of time in China. I have made 9 trips there over ten years, been to over 25 cities. The news people get from the so-called main stream media, about China is a joke!!! They often make sure that they include a photo of the military or Mao in the article. China, while not perfect, is nothing like it is portrayed in the west. We used to accuse communist countries of spreading propaganda.................they don't hold a candle to the propaganda being spread by the west.
The stupid, uninformed remarks here are evident of that.
You've obviously never been to China...