XINGHE COUNTY, China — Is it possible for a monstrous traffic jam that extends for dozens of miles and leaves drivers stranded for days to just vanish overnight?
For days, reports from both Chinese and foreign media have detailed how thousands of vehicles found themselves stuck in a historic traffic jam that spanned over 100 kilometers (60 miles) on a highway leading to Beijing, the capital of China.
Initiated on August 14, the bottleneck on the Beijing-Tibet expressway was caused by an increase in traffic from cargo-bearing heavy trucks, exacerbated by ongoing road maintenance works… yet it appears to have dissipated.
A team of AFP reporters traveled 260 kilometers on Wednesday along the highway departing Beijing, passing through the northern province of Hebei and entering Inner Mongolia — only to encounter sporadic traffic jams at toll booths.
The road to Beijing was filled with hundreds of trucks loaded with goods ranging from produce to live goats — yet traffic was flowing.
“The situation has improved significantly recently. I really don’t know the reason,” shared a female gas station attendant in Huailai county, approximately midway between the capital and Xinghe county in Inner Mongolia, during a conversation with AFP.
Officials from the Beijing traffic management bureau were not available for immediate comment.
According to the state-run Global Times, the traffic jam had even given rise to a 
mini-economy, where local vendors took advantage of the situation by selling water and food at inflated prices to stranded drivers.
This section of the highway has become increasingly susceptible to significant backups due to the demand from a capital with over 20 million residents pulling in massive quantities of goods.
Traffic came to a crawl in June and July for nearly a month, as reported earlier in the press.
In recent years, China has undertaken a significant expansion of its national road network; however, the traffic often overwhelms the infrastructure.
Government data indicates that Beijing is expected to reach five million cars on its roads by the end of this year, having surpassed the four million mark in December.
The head of the Beijing Transportation Research Centre, Guo Jifu, cautioned this week that traffic in the capital could drop to an average of under 15 kilometers per hour if no further steps are taken to reduce the number of vehicles.
