Traffic Jams Around The World

Sep 11, 2010 2 comments

Last month, a 100 Km (60 miles) long traffic jam was created on the Beijing-Tibet expressway. The jam had entered its10th day when reports first broke out on international media on April 23, 2010. The congestion which started on April 13 along the outskirts of Beijing was stretching toward the border of Inner Mongolia ever since roadwork on the Beijing-Tibet Highway started.

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Local authorities had to dispatch essential supplies, such as food or flammables, around the main bottleneck as vehicles crawled along little more than a third of a mile a day. Fortunately, the jam seemed to have been cleared by August 25, according to a Yahoo report.

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Other cities around the world face similar congestion headaches. The worst are in developing countries where the sudden rise of a car-buying middle class outpaces highway construction—unlike in the U.S., which had decades to develop transportation infrastructure to keep up with auto buyers.

A recent study by IBM suggested some of the worst commutes are in Moscow, where drivers reported 2½-hour delays, on average, when asked about the worst traffic jam they faced in three years. Still, Beijing beat out Mexico City, Johannesburg, Moscow and New Delhi to take top spot in the International Business Machines Corp. survey of "commuter pain,".

The 60 Km Beijing traffic was still not the record breaker. According to the Guinness Book of World Records those dubious records belong to France and Germany. The longest ever reported was that which stretched 109 miles northwards from Lyon towards Paris, France on February 16 1980 

Here are some pictures of “almost” regular traffic condition occurring in different parts of the world.

1

Muslims returning home after a three-day religious festival in Raivinde - a small town in Punjab province, November 8, 2009. (Arif Ali / AFP / Getty Images)

2

Morning traffic jam on the bridge Hua Yuan in Chongqing, China, July 28. (OLLI GEIBEL / AFP / Getty Images)

3

Residents of Manila on their way to work under the railway along the main road Epifanio de los Santos on January 21. (TED ALJIBE / AFP / Getty Images)

4

One of hundreds of families who are trying to evacuate the flooded areas Novshery, stuck in a traffic jam. (Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images)

5

Renovation at Shanghai, March 25, 2008, causes a traffic snarl. (MARK RALSTON / AFP / Getty Images)

6

A huge traffic jam on the road Departementale 5, not far from the Cayenne, arose due to the closure of the bridge Larivot November 30, 2009. (JODY AMIET / AFP / Getty Images)

7

Donkeys, motorcycle and truck caused traffic chaos in the street of the old city of Lahore, Pakistan, February 15. (Warrick Page / Getty Images)

An Iraqi smokes a cigarette out of his car during a traffic jam in central Baghdad, 26 August 2007. Iraq imposed an indefinite curfew on two-wheelers and hand carts in Baghdad and its surrounds yesterday, as thousands of Shiite pilgrims headed to the shrine city of Karbala for a major festival. The curfew came hours after a car bomb in Baghdad's Shiite neighbourhood of Kadhimiyah killed seven people and wounded 30, according to medical and security officials. AFP PHOTO / ALI YUSSEF (Photo credit should read ALI YUSSEF/AFP/Getty Images)

August 26, 2007 in Baghdad, a man smokes, waiting until traffic clears. (ALI YUSSEF / AFP / Getty Images)

9

Road blockade in Brussels on Dec. 6, 2008. (JOHN THYS / AFP / Getty Images)

10

Taxi drivers waiting for customers at the International Airport of Shanghai on Nov. 12, 2008. (China Photos / Getty Images)

TO GO WITH AFP STORY: (FILES) A file picture dated 10 September 2007 shows cars stuck in a traffic jam in Cairo a few days before the start of the school year and beginning of the holy month of Ramadan. A permanent cacophony in Cairo, already suffering from a record high air pollution, makes the Egyptian capital one of the world's most unbearably noisy cities, according to scientific studies. AFP PHOTO/KHALED DESOUKI (Photo credit should read KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images)

Cars trying to pass one another on the road to Cairo for a few days before the start of the new school year and the holy month of Ramadan on Sept. 10, 2007. (KHALED DESOUKI / AFP / Getty Images)

14

Chaos on the road in Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 22. (MUNIR UZ ZAMAN / AFP / Getty Images)

A Displaced Sudanese woman from Darfur holds the hand of her daughter as she begs for money in the traffic jam of Khartoum on February 26, 2008. The deadly conflict in Darfur entered its sixth year today with no solution in sight as Khartoum continued to resist the full deployment of a peacekeeping force amid a fresh wave of bombings. The United Nations said earlier this week that new bombings were endangering thousands of lives in Darfur, seeking reassurances that more civilians would be allowed to flee to join the estimated 2.2 million already displaced by the conflict. AFP PHOTO/ISAM AL-HAJ (Photo credit should read Isam Al-Haj/AFP/Getty Images)

A woman and her daughter, begging from drivers in a traffic jam in Khartoum, Sudan , February 26, 2008. (Isam Al-Haj/AFP/Getty Images)

16

A small accident caused traffic jams in rush hour in Beijing on Dec. 18, 2009. (FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP / Getty Images)

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