Snopes says this is real but "miscaptioned":
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/china-50-lane-highway-traffic-jam/
This is a genuine photograph of a traffic jam in China. However, the caption frequently attached to this image is a bit misleading.
This photograph was taken in October 2015 at the end of Golden Week, a week-long national holiday in China, and it captures heavy congestion at a toll gate on the G4 Beijing-Hong Kong-Macau Expressway
...
While this highway may expand to about 50 lanes at this toll booth — we counted the number of approximate car widths on a higher resolution version of this image and found that the "50-lane wide" expression was generally accurate for this portion of the road — the G4 expressway is not a "50-lane highway."
That answers some questions then opens up new ones. How does 50 toll booths make sense for a 4 lane highway? Contactless tolls existed back then and of all the countries, surely China of all places would be able to implement it cheaper and easily get drivers to install the contactless device needed as well as set up the license plate surveillance to enforce it.
How does 50 toll booths make sense for a 4 lane highway?
Because passing through a toll booth slows down each vehicle, you can move more vehicles through the space with additional terminals. Unfortunately, when you've got peak traffic, the folks on the other side of the terminal can still create congestion as they merge back into the smaller lane.
The solution to this, from the Chinese perspective, is massive investment in High Speed Rail.
If you don't want to sit in traffic at a major tool entrance like this, you can just ride any of the 200 mph+ train routes crisscrossing the nation.
TIL China has their own Golden Week in October, as opposed to Japan's in April.
I was going to say, that just looks like a toll booth
I mean that’s clearly just a toll plaza, right? Not actually a 50-lane highway, that then drops down to 4. Also that’s not 50, looks closer to 25-30 toll lanes.
It’s a bit hard to tell accurately from this picture but I counted the lanes of cars near the bottom somewhere in the 48-50 range though there are only 25 or so actually toll booths so who knows.
Regardless, I'm still relieved I'm not there.
Reminds me of this one from Mexico City (autopista del Sol)
Yeah. They could make some improvements so the merge back is better, but it's 4 to 30(?) to 4. Not as horrible as it looks.
Maybe not but it still looks like a miserable traffic jam to be in
In the U.S. we put a sticker on the windshield that gets scanned when the car passes through. While you are supposed to slow down a bit they work just fine at 100km/hour. They could leave the road at 4 lanes and get rid of all of the booths. Minimal traffic back up.
We purchase the stickers at your local grocery store.
Looking at the pavement, I wonder if it wasn’t as abrupt in the past but then they added that second building and screwed it up?
Surely, another lane will fix the issue! Of course not a 5th lane, that's probably not possible, but a 51st.
They saw the Holland and Lincoln tunnel toll plaza and thought it was an inspiration not a warning.
I imagine navigating this is like trying to solve a prisoners dilemma problem, but on the scale of a small town instead of two people.
One more lane would fix it!
Frogger final boss.
I'd like to see a selfdriving car get through this
Self-driving car:
"Oh, I need to wait for this other car to pass me before I merge lanes. I'll just wait :)"
"Oh, I need to wait for this other car to pass me before I merge lanes. I'll just wait :)"
"Oh no! I'm right between two lanes and I can't move because the other cars are in the way :')"
"I'll just wait here with my hazard lights on until traffic clears up :)"
Are you sure a 50 lane highway is what we're seeing here? To me, this looks more like toll booth or a customs house.
I think I heard once that its basically never like this though? only major holidays or some shit?
I'd still rather live in the woods and create a radical anti-government militia
I mean, you have a point there.
Real Maoist Hours
This reminds me of entrance queues at Comic Cons in Kyiv (and I would imagine, in other cities as well)
