The World's Worst Traffic

     Originally published on Sympatico.ca

Crawling along at the speed of a meat grinder, tensions flaring, congestion worse than chronic nasal flu.  What can you say about gridlock?  Its sheer waste of time is enough to make you sell your car and take the bus, except the bus is crammed with people, and its stuck in traffic too.

Fortunately, there is some solace, a soothing balm to comfort you the next time you find yourself in a traffic nightmare.    Simply put:  No matter how bad it gets, at least you don’t have to put up with the daily chaos in the cities below:

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Together with 20 million people living in greater Sao Paulo, comes the fact that there are nearly 8 million cars on the road.   Every time I take a taxi from the airport, I’m boggled by the gridlock, and the deft manoeuvres drivers will perform to get out of them.   Sao Paulo holds the world record for the worst traffic jam, when it was reported in May 2008 that over a quarter of all streets within the city were completely backed up.    The wealthy elite has found a solution however. Sao Paulo holds the largest fleet of helicopters in the world.

Cairo, Egypt

Anyone who has visited Cairo will tell you about the pyramids, but first they’ll tell you about the traffic. It runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and operates according to local rules of madness that include few street lights, no-lane roundabouts, and on-the-fly rules and customs.   For example:  If you do see a green light, it’s a mistake to believe it means “go”. The same with stopping for “red”.   Locals say the trick is to make use of every space you can see, stopping only if that space is already filled, by say, a donkey cart.   Somehow it works, but I pity the North American tourist who rents a car and dares to enter the fray. ​

Los Angeles, USA

Compared to Cairo, it's easier to navigate the vast highways of LA, although during rush hour, don’t plan on driving much.  Such is the state of LA traffic, it often becomes a character in movies and TV shows, and the internet is rife with Youtube clips of people losing their marbles behind the wheel.  According the American Highway Users Alliance, the US-101 highway, intersecting with the I-405, is the worst bottleneck highway in the United States, with 318,000 cars passing through daily, resulting in an estimated 27 million hours of annual delay.  I don’t know how they figured that out exactly, but I’ve been stuck on the 101 and the 405, and if I can’t claim back those lost hours of my life, I guess nobody can either.

Mumbai, India

I defer to my notes, recorded on arrival in Mumbai for the first time.  “Taxi driver has severe tic. Keeps snapping his head and twitching violently.  Car is small and rusted.  Narrowly avoid collision with cow, bus, three children, dog, motorbike, rickshaw, and a one-legged beggar – all at first intersection. Unbelievable chaos.  Driver might have rigor mortis.  See and feel: deep potholes, police, magazine sellers, scooters transporting family of five, trucks with loose butane tanks hanging out the back, flea markets with real fleas, holy men, bicycles, random trees in the tarmac, garbage, babies.  Too much stimulation. Close eyes.  Pray for safe arrival."

Beijing, China

Traffic and the pollution it spawns were major challenges for organizers of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.   They tried an odd-even scheme to clear roads of the city’s notorious traffic – rotating which cars were permitted to drive according to their license plate numbers.  Crafty locals switched up cars or even bought a second car just to get around it.  Locals could finally see what a blue sky looked like from their bumper-to-bumper transits, but the restrictions did not work over the long term - Beijing's air pollution continues to plague the city.  ​

Caracas, Venezuela

While the price of gas continues to rise the world over, in Venezuela, a litre will cost you pennies.   As the world's 5th largest exporter, Venezuela has some of the cheapest gas around.  But the government hasn’t offered the infrastructure to handle the subsequent explosion in car ownership, as vehicles cram onto shoddy highways and line up on potholed side streets.  Road rage and violent shootouts have become common enough for the state to issue psychological advice on how to deal with the gridlock. These include reading a book, listening to music, and keeping your gun holstered.  ​

Bangkok, Thailand

12 million people call Bangkok home, and they all seemed to want to go to exactly to the same place I did.   It didn’t take me long to forego the charms of a three-wheeled tuk-tuk for a blissfully air-conditioned and far less noisy taxi.   Besides, neither tuk-tuk nor taxi was going anywhere fast, and sitting back in the taxi, I didn’t have to chew exhaust fumes and shower in sweat.   It’s easy enough to get around Bangkok mind you, if you’re not in too big a rush.  Just avoid rush hour, which unfortunately extends into most of the day.

Tokyo, Japan

Levelled by bombs during World War II, greater Tokyo evolved without much urban planning, sprawling out from the city centre into the world’s most populous metro, housing an incredible 35 million people.  Even with the most extensive urban subway in the world to service it,  the result is incredible road congestion, with few bypasses or highways to funnel drivers in and out the city.   The Tokyo Traffic Control centre works 24 hours a day and has the power to manage traffic lights, working with typical Japanese efficiency to limit traffic jams using some 17,000 vehicle detectors.    Still, the traffic remains fierce, so it’s best to navigate the spaghetti-lines of the subway below.  ​