Monster Jam
Last week the world was abuzz with the story of the ridiculously long traffic jam outside of Beijing stretching into Hebei Province. The pictures we saw looked familiar to us because, of course, the jammed up highways are those we have taken when we have gone into Hebei to Jimingyi, Tianmo, and Xuanhua. In fact, back in May we had to avoid this road and the nearest alternate route on the way home because traffic was completely stopped on both. Instead we detoured around the western edges of Beijing, taking nearly five hours to get home. Having driven these roads ourselves several times this year, we weren't shocked at all to read about the nine or ten-day-old traffic jam.
What was a bit of a surprise, though, was the AFP report that late last week, as far as their correspondents could tell, the traffic jam had disappeared. They had driven a car from Beijing all the way to Inner Mongolia on the expressway and never encountered anything beyond regular congestion. This just sounded so odd. How could thousands of stranded truck drivers just disappear? Randy and I both suspected that while some of the traffic may have moved, the AFP reporters may not have checked the smaller highways onto which much of the truck traffic could have been shunted, like the G110.
On Sunday when we were in Yanqing County, the rural county between Changping and the Hebei Province-Beijing boundary. Randy and I thought we would see what the G110 looked like out here, especially since it was likely we'd see some traffic. We had driven to one part of Yanqing (Yongning, actually) taking a road through the mountains past the Great Wall, and we thought we'd look at the G110 but then take the expressway home from there.
When we got to the G110 overpass, we saw all the Beijing-bound traffic, all of it tractor trailers, stopped. Northbound lanes were moving, but anyone trying to make their way south were stopped. Of course, without our going up there and asking the drivers how long they've been there we would have no way of knowing if this were just a regular Sunday night jam or a continuation of the seemingly endless jam.
What was a bit of a surprise, though, was the AFP report that late last week, as far as their correspondents could tell, the traffic jam had disappeared. They had driven a car from Beijing all the way to Inner Mongolia on the expressway and never encountered anything beyond regular congestion. This just sounded so odd. How could thousands of stranded truck drivers just disappear? Randy and I both suspected that while some of the traffic may have moved, the AFP reporters may not have checked the smaller highways onto which much of the truck traffic could have been shunted, like the G110.
On Sunday when we were in Yanqing County, the rural county between Changping and the Hebei Province-Beijing boundary. Randy and I thought we would see what the G110 looked like out here, especially since it was likely we'd see some traffic. We had driven to one part of Yanqing (Yongning, actually) taking a road through the mountains past the Great Wall, and we thought we'd look at the G110 but then take the expressway home from there.
When we got to the G110 overpass, we saw all the Beijing-bound traffic, all of it tractor trailers, stopped. Northbound lanes were moving, but anyone trying to make their way south were stopped. Of course, without our going up there and asking the drivers how long they've been there we would have no way of knowing if this were just a regular Sunday night jam or a continuation of the seemingly endless jam.
Along the road on which we were driving, smaller trucks, many loaded with dirt or construction equipment, were stacked up on both sides, from the G110 to the on ramp to the Expressway. Once we got to the Expressway, a steady stream of south-bound semis were exiting, likely to join those on or waiting to get on the G110.
Again, unless we actually spoke to the drivers, we would not know if they had only been stopped today or longer. However, it made me a little suspicious that the AFP reporters did not check out the smaller highways where such traffic would be diverted. They no doubt would have seen something like what I have pictured, if only because the G110, which was involved in last week's traffic mess, is often at a standstill anyway. Though, for whatever reason, the traffic jam was an undesirable reporting assignment. In fact, in one of my favorite tweets from last week, Mark McKinnon of the Globe and Mail declared, "I've been to Baghdad, Grozny and Kandahar. But nothing on this planet could get me to report first-hand from China's monster traffic jam."
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