Pyongyang Traffic Features Traffic Conductors and No Real Rush Hour

Summary: North Korea's capital city of Pyongyang features traffic conductors and no real rush hour on streets organized on an east-west, north-south grid.

Pyongyang traffic conductor: (stephan), CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr

Although most residents of North Korea’s capital city bicycle, use public transportation or walk, a recent, unexplained visible increase in Pyongyang traffic places more vehicles on the city of willow’s wide, tree-lined streets.

Despite an increase in on-the-road vehicles, Pyongyang traffic basically is stress-free as traffic conductors, who are primarily female, direct rush-hour-free drivers of passenger cars, public transport, taxis, trucks and other vehicles on the city’s unhurried streets. An east-west, north-south grid contributes to the orderly appearance of Pyongyang’s streets and further eases the already leisurely flow of traffic.

Eric Talmadge, the Associated Press’s North Korea bureau chief since 2013, describes the pattern of Pyongyang traffic in an article Dec. 10, 2015, in The Washington Post.

He notes: “Even with more vehicles on the roads, it’s unusual to have more than a dozen or so cars waiting behind a red light at any time of day, in any part of the city. At night, the roads remain virtually empty.”

Talmadge, the AP’s second chief since the bureau opened in 2011, suggests the noticeable increase in Pyongyang traffic may stem from an increase in construction, dating back about five years. Cargo-carrying trucks transport building materials and workers to construction sites.

Passenger car ownership is rare among North Koreans. Official vehicles of government, military and party elites dominate Pyongyang’s passenger car traffic. Talmadge notes that passenger cars rarely venture outside of Pyongyang. During a weeklong trip in the North Korean countryside, police and soldiers, assuming a rarely seen automobile transports important officials, stand at attention and salute his car.

As indicators of the increase in Pyongyang traffic, fee-charging parking lots, gas stations and traffic lights are dotting the city’s landscape. Talmadge, who commutes from his home in Japan to spend around 10 days each month in Pyongyang, notices falling gas prices.

“Though paying for gas is a big hurdle to car ownership, the price has reportedly gone down recently. At one Pyongyang gas station last week, the price for one kilogram of gas -- instead of liters, that’s the most commonly used unit -- was 73.33 North Korean won, or 80.06 won if purchased with a debit card. Diesel costs 63.33 won. At the official exchange rate, that is less than one U.S. dollar,” Talmadge observes.

A spike in taxis amidst Pyongyang traffic over recent years places their presence on Pyongyang’s clean, spacious streets in the range of over 1,000. Above-ground, trams and trolleys ferry most of Pyongyang’s 2.5 million residents around North Korea’s largest city.

Below-ground, Pyongyang’s deeply embedded, completely underground metro system spans 14 miles (22.5 kilometers). At a depth of more than 328 feet (100-plus meters), Pyongyang’s metro stations are designed to serve as bomb shelters, when necessary.

The recent increase in Pyongyang traffic is bringing out a visible transformation in the capital city’s “once sleepy streets.” Pyongyang’s traffic conductors no longer stand out in generally trafficless intersections. Instead they are busy directing actual traffic.

Despite the liveliness of the Pyongyang traffic scene, Talmadge reveals: “To be clear, Los Angeles or Jakarta it is not.”

A View from the Top ("Traffic's a Killer!") ~ view from Juche Tower, Central District, of Pyongyang's orderly, generally trafficless, wide boulevards in 2007: Gilad Rom (xeno_sapien), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Pyongyang traffic: A View from the Top ("Traffic's a Killer!") ~ view from Juche Tower, Central District, of Pyongyang's orderly, generally trafficless, wide boulevards in 2007: Gilad Rom (xeno_sapien), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gilad_rom/850363565/

Pyongyang traffic conductor: (stephan), CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/fljckr/2604170573/

For further information:

Farhi, Paul. "Eric Talmadge is the only Western reporter regularly in North Korea. Here's what it's like." The Washington Post > Lifestyle. Jan. 18, 2015.
Available @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/eric-talmadge-is-the-only-western-reporter-regularly-in-north-korea-heres-what-its-like/2015/01/18/2a01808e-9a9f-11e4-96cc-e858eba91ced_story.html

koryogroup. "Traffic Girls of Pyongyang, North Korea." YouTube. May 19, 2013.
Available @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEvrFg4dnkM

Talmadge, Eric. "Pyongyang's once sleepy roads now filling with cars." The Washington Post. Dec. 10, 2015.
Available @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/pyongyangs-once-sleepy-roads-now-filling-with-cars/2015/12/10/0f3ba852-9f02-11e5-9ad2-568d814bbf3b_story.html