Laying 2.4 km (1.5 miles) of asphalt on a busy motorway like Beijing’s Fourth Ring Road would take days, if not weeks, and cause a ton of inconvenience, including complete road closures, anywhere in the world, but not in China. The country’s work speed when it comes to construction and infrastructure was already legendary, but it recently set a new world record, by fixing a sizeable stretch of road in one night.
Instead of closing down its road for repair work, or even blocking a few lanes at a time, Chinese infrastructure managers decided to avoid road congestion altogether by fixing the damaged stretch in a single night. It was a monumental undertaking, but Beijing’s Fourth Ring Road was ready for use before the first commuters woke up for work.
China Speed is an expression people in construction use to describe working at an almost superhuman pace. And it actually is pretty incredible. For example, a few years back, we wrote about a Chinese company that erected an apartment building in just 29 hours.
