Commuting - Nine day traffic jam...

Things like this make me ever so happy that I'm a cycle commuter....

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j7mCeh43Lk-RIXgcK3jGiDODQt0A

but it leads me to wonder how long I'd sit in a traffic jam before I just abandoned the car...

I'm pretty sure that at the first available turn-out, I'd be offroading it to get out of that mess. I don't even like sitting in traffic for 9 minutes, much less for 9 days! (Of course, I take my bike more places than my car, so traffic isn't much of an issue.)

I'm pretty sure that at the first available turn-out, I'd be offroading it to get out of that mess.

In your average Chinese car? I think not.

It says the traffic jam lasted nine days & does not say that people sat in traffic for nine days.

Hopefully a few thousand of those drivers will decide it is probably a better investment of their time and money to ride their bike than to continue driving.

I heard that some people were scheduling a concert for the people waiting to help get rid of their boredom. I heard that the people in it have just given up and are playing cards and talking waiting for their cages to be free.

Just to be clear, these aren't commuters we're talking about here. The jam is happening on the section between Inner Mongolia and Beijing due to a combination of road construction and a spike in coal demand -- from the sound of it, most of the vehicles involved are coal trucks. Bloomberg has the story (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-24/coal-cargos-to-feed-chinese-power-demand-spur-9-day-traffic-jam-on-highway.html). They're not going to be switching to bicycles.

Beijing does have terrible traffic, but this story isn't about that.

I was just in a 70-km traffic jam in central Germany. :notamused: It was unpleasant at best.

Now all they need is to give them hover cars and drive around an enclosed highway filled with monsters living below until the Doctor rescues them.

looks like from the pics that you can ride up onto the "slow"way and just past them while laughing at their predicament. Might be a nice ride by bicycle though from the looks of it. They said it was soo bad vendors where showing up there to sell them food and water at inflated prices. NICE!

Now all they need is to give them hover cars and drive around an enclosed highway filled with monsters living below until the Doctor rescues them.
I get the reference!

IRONIC, since the chinese were very well known for riding their bicycles everywhere before.

I hate traffic. I'm not sure what I would do if I had to deal with that.

"had given birth to a mini-economy with local merchants capitalising on the stranded drivers' predicament by selling them water and food at inflated prices."

This is just awesome. Entrepreneurship at its best! :)
A good friend of mine who works in China recently got back and told me that with the explosion of capitalism in the last few decades, status symbol or the perceived one at least is huge amongst the China culture. Having been relegated to clunky bikes in the past, the Chinese citizens are turning to cars (amongst many others) as a show of status. No doubt also fueled by Hollywood's rich and famous lifestyle. So going back to biking is unimaginable for them. Of course many still ride their bikes and easily outnumber cyclo commuters in US. :rolleyes:

I get the reference!

Russell T. Davis story in which he was commenting on exactly that thing.. :)

"had given birth to a mini-economy with local merchants capitalising on the stranded drivers' predicament by selling them water and food at inflated prices."

This is just awesome. Entrepreneurship at its best! :)

Just think; not only could you laugh at the traffic, you could turn a profit on the way to and from work by stocking up your panniers beforehand. Heck, with a trailer, you could even be a wholesale distributor for all the other vendors. :)

"had given birth to a mini-economy with local merchants capitalising on the stranded drivers' predicament by selling them water and food at inflated prices."

This is just awesome. Entrepreneurship at its best! :)
A good friend of mine who works in China recently got back and told me that with the explosion of capitalism in the last few decades, status symbol or the perceived one at least is huge amongst the China culture. Having been relegated to clunky bikes in the past, the Chinese citizens are turning to cars (amongst many others) as a show of status. No doubt also fueled by Hollywood's rich and famous lifestyle. So going back to biking is unimaginable for them. Of course many still ride their bikes and easily outnumber cyclo commuters in US. :rolleyes:

That is pretty much a growing problem in china. I'm chinese myself and know that since they're economy grows their transportation and housing changes also. I dunno whats with my nationality but you gotta always be ahead of everyone else in status, it's weird and I could care less (I have a car that sits in the garage cause I prefer to bike, in Canada though). The real problem is once they have a car they would not go back to a bicycle is like going down a class level or something. So this problem is only going to get worse, their car to bike ratio 10-20 years ago in china was 20/80 but now it's already at 80/20 and the car is still climbing. The country is going to run into some very serious transportation problems if the government doesn't step in and provide alternate forms of transportation methods, like show them cycling is actually good to return to and increase public transportation (i'm not sure how the underground tube is in beijing if they have one).

It's funny even with a friend of mine her parents moved to a bigger house when they where all living together, now that they all married and the big house is an empty nest they refused to sell it to go to something more reasonable (easier to maintain, heat, cool). She told me the parents said they cannot go back to a smaller house it would be silly. oh man such a waste with a large carbon footprint.