Congestion alert for Labor Day holiday

Travel fever is predicted for the coming Labor Day holiday from next Wednesday to Saturday.

The Shanghai Road Administration Bureau predicts that on the Wednesday an average of 1.55 million vehicles will use the city’s expressways, a 5.7 percent increase compared with last year.

The peak days will be May 1 and 4 when up to 1.6 million vehicles will be on the expressways.

On May 1, the peak period will be from 8am to noon, and congestion is predicted for some outbound roads, including Wuzhou Avenue, Yan’an Elevated Road and the northern and western parts of the Middle Ring Road.

The heaviest congestion on May 4 will last from 2pm to 9pm, especially in the inbound direction of the Yangtze River Bridge and Tunnel on the G40 Expressway and Yan’an Elevated Road.

Congestion is also predicted during evening rush hour on April 30 especially on Yan’an Elevated Road, the Inner Ring Road and the North-South Elevated Road as well as the G2, G15, G40, G50 and G60 expressways in the outbound direction.

The number of vehicles using the city’s elevated roads will reach 2.25 million, a 3.4 percent rise from the day before the holiday last year, and the number of vehicles using the expressways will be 10 percent more than the working day average.

Some 3.3 million vehicles will cross Shanghai’s border with neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, with 75 percent using expressways and mainly those connecting Shanghai and Jiangsu, the bureau said.

During the holiday, passenger vehicles with up to seven seats can use the city’s expressways free.

Trucks with yellow plates won’t be able to take the G40 Expressway within Shanghai from 6am to 8pm during the holiday, except for trucks carrying fresh produce, emergency vehicles and those which supply fuel to service stations along the expressways.