I have heard about traffic gridlock at an intersection but I have never see an example until Saturday, April 25. Jiajing's mom, Charles and I were headed to the ferry landing to take the ferry across the Yangtze River to have lunch, do some shopping, and have a good time together.
When we reached the street outside of where I live we realized something was wrong because traffic was curb to curb with cars and mostly busses, packed in so tight you could not walk across the street. In some places the traffic was all facing the intersection, preventing any traffic from moving away from the intersection. Traffic was backed up as far as we could see away from the intersection and totally unable to move.
We walked down to the intersection, which formed a tee; the street I just described being the bottom of the tee. At the intersection we saw the problem. Cars coming from the right of the tee were trying to make a left turn up the street I just described, but found no place to go. A bus from the street described was trying to make a left turn from the right hand lane was blocked by these cars. As a result no traffic from the left could move across the intersection and no traffic could get onto the right part of the tee from the bottom of the tee to go right. As traffic backed up on the left side of the tee, it began to move across the double line and restrict traffic flow going left. That traffic eventually stopped. Since traffic going left was now stopped and since there was no traffic going right on the right part of the tee, that space on the right part of the tee filled with traffic headed toward the intersection. At the intersection all traffic was going into the tee with traffic backing up on all three parts of the tee. The traffic was so tight there were only a few places big enough for a person to walk across the street. You could not get out of your car, bus or truck. If I were alone I would have gotten my camera and stayed around to see how they finally cleared the mess up. When we came back later that day we found traffic back to normal - just short of gridlock.
Update: On Tuesday, April 28, I was at the intersection with my camera on the way to the park for prayer. There were several police there trying to maintain order. They were trying to keep the intersection open and people on the correct side of the street.
The above picture shows the intersection. There are at least two bus lines that do "U" turns in this intersection. The street to the picture's right has several bus stops on both sides of the road and at two of them empty busses are stored there at the side of the road waiting for their time to start the route. Traffic is heavy here and there are also many people trying to cross the street. When you get enough people in a group you can push your way through traffic and actually stop it. As you can see from the picture, traffic is very heavy at this intersection. The policeman in the picture is holding back the traffic on a green light to prevent the intersection from being blocked. Once that happens you are close to gridlock.
