The purpose of a flyover is to ease congestion, but a newly built flyover in the city of Zhengzhou has instead become a new source of congestion. It often takes cars half an hour to pass the 1-kilometer-long section of road.

At 8 a.m., long queues of vehicles are already creeping along roads surrounding the flyover. Mr. Zhu, a local resident, passes the area every day. He explained, "It usually takes me half an hour, or even one hour at worst, to pass through the flyover."

According to Xing Hongjun, a traffic police officer, the main reason for the traffic congestion is that nine lanes of roads that connect to the flyover suddenly reduce to four lanes at the entrance to the flyover. Traffic police pointed the problem out to construction workers at the start of construction, but a manager of the project said they were only carrying out the work in accordance with project blueprints.

Zhang Weizhong, an official with the Zhengzhou Urban and Rural Planning Bureau, admitted that the bureau did not take all the factors into consideration when designing the flyover.

"The planning department put more emphasis on planning the project. The problem needs to be resolved step by step," he said.

The Longhai Road-Zhongzhou Avenue Flyover cost 650 million yuan ($97,465,886), and it has been open to traffic for about two months. Relevant departments are currently working on a plan to ease congestion, but it is unknown when the plan will be carried out.