At the end of August thousands of vehicles were trapped in a traffic jam stretching more than 100 kilometers on the highway from Inner Mongolia to Beijing. The traffic jam began on August 14 due to a spike in traffic by cargo-bearing heavy trucks and compounded by road maintenance works. Normal traffic was restored only on August 23. Four days later, another 30 km traffic jam appeared, which later grew to about 120 km. Experts blamed the recent jams on fast urbanization and overstretched infrastructure. Minister of Transport Li Shenglin has proposed building a new road near Beijing to ease bottlenecks on highways connecting Beijing with Inner Mongolia and Tibet. A 25 km auxiliary road near Beijing could ease traffic along the busiest section of National Highway No 110. The report said the Ministry would press local governments to accelerate construction of a 150 km expressway in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province. The Hebei government was also studying a plan to build a railway line specifically to transport coal from Inner Mongolia to other parts of the country. The Zhangjiakou Road Transportation Bureau said the area had endured massive traffic jams since 2005. In the most serious case, 100,000 people were stranded in 30,000 vehicles for up to 34 days. More than 60% of Inner Mongolia’s coal is carried by trucks because the weak railroad network can handle only 40%. The best solution to avoid traffic jams in the future would be to optimize road and railway networks.