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Forget About LA Traffic, This 50-Lane-Wide Expressway in Beijing Is a Nightmare

When you know that an estimated 750 million people - or half of China’s population - will be on the move, you probably expect traffic jams. But this is far from being a regular 30-minute delay on a busy expressway. In fact, we’re quite surprised Guinness Book weren’t around since it could have passed as a record in now time.
50-Lane-Wide Expressway in Beijing 1 photo
Photo: Mashable
The number mentioned above is not some fantasy we just came up with; it’s an estimation announced by Xinhua News Agency which in return was citing data released by the Transport Ministry. All these people were expected to move around during the National Day celebration on October 1 and 7, and, as you can see, they did.

What you see here is a capture of how the main highway to Beijing, a 50-lane-wide G4 Beijing-Hong Kong-Macau Expressway, looked like two days ago. Did we say 50? Yes, and that puts any other famous similar highway to a massive moment of silence. According to Mashable, the expressway became congested with thousands of motorists after a new checkpoint caused traffic to merge down to 20 lanes, creating what petrolheads call a bottleneck (for the obvious reason).

The traffic freeze lasted for hours, naturally, and it makes any other jam pale in comparison.We are talking about Beijing after all, a city that a while ago projected a sunrise on huge plasma screens posted throughout the town because the smog was too thick for people to see the sky.

After all, we are not just talking about the capital of People’s Republic of China, but also the second largest one by urban population after Shanghai. As far as 2013 official numbers stand, the population was 21,150,000.

Imagine this: it is home to the HQ of most of China’s largest state-owned companies, the city’s history dates back three millennia, and has been the political center of the country for much of the past eight centuries.

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