topic Re: How Is Your Commute? in Community Chat

How Is Your Commute?

Kachina624 — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 00:56:45 GMT

No matter how frustrating, it can't be as bad as this freeway in China. Give thanks that you live in the good ole USA!

Re: How Is Your Commute?

Goldengate8361 — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 01:00:11 GMT

@Kachina624 @Are you sure that wasn't made in Nashville?

Re: How Is Your Commute?

patbz — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 01:00:49 GMT

Went to China six years ago and big cities are 13-22 million people so yes, that's what commuting looks like.

Re: How Is Your Commute?

fthunt — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 01:02:31 GMT

Perhaps a parking lot - those folks ride scooter & bikes.

Re: How Is Your Commute?

RoughDraft — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 01:03:54 GMT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ulY7N3dZ9k

Not much better with their commuter trains.

Re: How Is Your Commute?

Sooner — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 01:07:12 GMT

Okie dokie! So you tell me what we can do about pollution? What difference will it make? Ok and then think too about India.

Re: How Is Your Commute?

Kachina624 — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 01:09:26 GMT

@fthunt wrote:
Perhaps a parking lot - those folks ride scooter & bikes.

@fthunt It may become a parking lot but it's a freeway. Obviously not all ride scooters.

Re: How Is Your Commute?

Kachina624 — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 01:12:37 GMT

@Goldengate8361 wrote:
@Kachina624 @Are you sure that wasn't made in Nashville?

@Goldengate8361 I drove a motorhom from Albuquerque to Philadelphia and the only place I got lost and in a traffic mess was in Nashville on a freeway.

Re: How Is Your Commute?

Carmie — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 02:32:33 GMT

I never saw traffic like that when I was in China. They have millions of motor bikes with whole families on them...even babies. They zig and zag around pedestrians who keep walking while the bikes just miss them by inches.

Our tour bus got wrapped up in China on a back road. There were several water buffalo that were stubborn and would not move off of the highway. We sat for about an hour until the tour company called a bunch of taxis that could manover around the buffalo to get us to our destination.

The taxi drivers are scary...I held my breath the whole time. They are not afraid of hitting water buffalo.

I wonder where that pic was taken and where the people were going. China doesn't have many cars there beyond taxis which are black or white and they are like little go carts...so small.

Re: How Is Your Commute?

BlueFinch — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 03:06:46 GMT

This is weird. I didn't think they even had that many cars in China for the average person, to be out on a snail crawl freeway. I've never seen photos, or read descriptions of traffic like this in China. I have seen the crazy driving.

Odd that there's no traffic on the four lane frontage roads. What is that going across the freeway? A toll type area, or authorization point? How could that be functional? You could spend half a day just trying to get through that mess.

Re: How Is Your Commute?

Marp — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 03:29:22 GMT

China's 50-Lane Traffic Jam Is Every Commuter's Worst Nightmare

What happens when a checkpoint merges 50 lanes down to 20.

Traffic after the holidays tend to be pretty awful. But China may have just turned every driver’s worst nightmare into reality as hundreds of millions of people headed home at the end of a Golden Week, a week-long national holiday.

Thousands of motorists found themselves stranded on Tuesday in what looks from above like a 50-lane parking lot on the G4 Beijing-Hong Kong-Macau Expressway, one of the country’s busiest roads. Some are dubbing the traffic jam a "carpocalypse," while others are calling it “carmageddon.”

Though foggy weather may have played a role, the real culprit is a new checkpoint that forces traffic to merge from 50 lanes down to just 20, according to The People’s Daily. Traffic was reportedly backed up for hours.

China is no stranger to these ridiculous traffic jams, especially on national highways. In 2010, gridlock spanning more than 74 miles on the stretch between the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Beijing left drivers with nowhere to go for a staggering 12 days. That time blame fell on everything from road construction to broken down cars and fender-benders.

People played cards to pass the time while nearby vendors took the opportunity to sell food and water at premium prices. “If you said ‘no’ or complained about the price they threaten to break your [wind]shields,” one driver told the Inner Mongolia Morning Post.

In 2012, the government’s decision to grant free road travel during the same national holiday turned 24 motorways in 16 provinces into a massive parking lot with more than 85 million people stuck in their cars.

From: bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-08/china-s-50-lane-traffic-jam-is-every-commuter-s-worst-nightmare

Note: The article contains the photo in the OP. It is from 2015.

Re: How Is Your Commute?

Tinkrbl44 — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 03:48:25 GMT

I live in SoCal and all I can say is .... Wow!

Re: How Is Your Commute?

patbz — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 04:50:45 GMT

@fthunt : When I first went to China in 1981 yes, they did primarily ride scooters but now they all ride cars, including many American cars. The only make you never see is Toyota, Chinese have never forgotten Japanese occupation.

Re: How Is Your Commute?

Lilysmom1 — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 07:16:31 GMT

@Kachina624 Amen!

Re: How Is Your Commute?

Tinkrbl44 — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 07:51:34 GMT

Anyone remember the TV show many, many years ago ... The Jetsons ?

George hopped in his car which immediately turned into a small plane, and off he went.

When he arrived at work he hopped out and his little plane turned into a briefcase ... and he then went in to work.

I want one of those.

Re: How Is Your Commute?

Harpa — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 12:28:48 GMT

I just got done telling my DH that even our back roads are getting swamped!

But, I'll keep that picture in mind next time the highway around here gets bottled up!