ONE traffic jam snaking into Beijing is 100km long and expected to last for a month.
It shows how China's economic growth and booming car numbers are still outstripping the billions being spent on infrastructure.
The city authorities have sent 400 police to the area to try to calm the situation -- the second time in two months such a massive traffic snarl has occurred on the road that links the Chinese capital to Tibet.
"Insufficient traffic capacity on National Expressway 110 caused by maintenance construction since August 19 is the major cause of the congestion," a publicity officer with the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau told the Global Times this week.
"We've already sent traffic policemen to work on easing the traffic congestion."
The highway is designated for exclusive use by trucks, but the congestion mirrored the daily situation on the roads in most cities of any size in China.
In recent years, vehicle buying in the world's most populous nation has gathered pace. China last year passed the US for the first time as the world's biggest buyer of automobiles.
Car ownership is soaring fastest in China's biggest and richest cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. About 650,000 new cars are estimated to be put on the road every year in the capital alone.
Helped by subsidies, the Chinese bought 13.6 million cars last year, exceeding by three million the estimates made by Ford in February last year.
This included truck sales of 650,000, meaning China was still comfortably ahead in terms of private car sales, which were 53 per cent higher than in 2008.
Vehicle sales are continuing to rise, although growth is slower than last year's highs. Sales of vehicles including buses and trucks increased 14.4 per cent in July to 1.24 million for the month, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
The Chinese government committed four trillion yuan ($660 billion) in 2008 to a two-year economic stimulus package, which has helped the country avoid the global recession.
About 40 per cent of that has been spent on infrastructure but traffic congestion continues to grow.
One radical solution thrown up this month is a road-straddling mega-bus so big that cars can drive under it. Proponents say this would eliminate the need to tunnel underground or build expensive bridges. The elevated buses straddle the road on rails and provide enough clearance for other vehicles on the road - apart from large trucks - to drive beneath. This strategy would allow the buses to travel faster than the other traffic without the need for dedicated lanes or structures.
And construction of 15km of rail track is planned for Beijing's Mentougou district this year, with a further 170km if it is successful.
