BEIJING (AFP) – Thousands of vehicles were bogged down Monday in a more than 100-kilometer (62-mile) traffic jam leading to Beijing that has lasted nine days and highlights China’s growing road congestion woes.
The Beijing-Tibet expressway slowed to a crawl on August 14 due to a spike in traffic by cargo-bearing heavy trucks heading to the capital, and compounded by road maintenance work that began five days later, the Global Times said.
The state-run newspaper said the jam between Beijing and Jining city had given birth to a mini-economy with local merchants capitalizing on the stranded drivers’ predicament by selling them water and food at inflated prices.
That stretch of highway linking Beijing with the northern province of Hebei and the Inner Mongolia region has become increasingly prone to massive jams as the capital of more than 20 million people sucks in huge shipments of goods.
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