TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Traffic jams on the nation's freeways piled up earlier than the National Freeway Bureau (NFB,國道高速公路局) had predicted Monday, starting as early as 12 p.m.
▲圖／翻攝自中國郵報
According to the NFB, congestion on National Freeway No. 5 was predicted for between 3 p.m. and 11 p.m., with an estimated 98 minutes of commute time increase. However, jams on the freeway connecting Yilan and New Taipei began hours earlier than expected, with speeds down to an average of 33 kilometers per hour just past midday. At one point, motorists were trapped in a 8-kilometer long traffic jam on the freeway.
Officials at the Pinglin Traffic Control Center said the slowdown National Freeway No. 5 was expected to last until 1 a.m. Tuesday.
Officials also said jams were expected to return around 9 a.m. Tuesday, the last day of the national holiday, as over 30,000 vehicles had yet to return home from Yilan and other eastern Taiwan areas via the freeway.
The NFB's traffic report indicated that speeds on stretches of Freeway No. 1 and No. 3 were also averaging below 40 kilometers per hour on Monday afternoon.
The heavy traffic caused jams at various entrance and exit ramps on the freeways, and prompted the NFB to impose car-pool restrictions on northbound entrance ramps from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Several key provincial highways were also heavily congested on Monday, with provincial highways No. 86 and No. 20 experiencing periodic jams. Traffic police deployed to relief the congestion said that they would have almost no time to rest, as a new wave of vehicles would go come their way once a previous jam had been cleared out. The officers also reported congestion extensions, stating that the bad traffic was effecting regular road traffic near the highways.
Various roads around rural areas also reported heavy traffic yesterday. According to reports, certain areas experienced bad traffic due to fire trucks being deployed to respond to fire hazards as a result of offerings burning during the Tomb Sweeping Festival.
Due to the anticipated congestion coming today the general public is encouraged to take alternative routes to avoid heavy congestion on non-national freeways and provincial highways.
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