Traffic in North Korea: Pyongyang, Highways, Kaesong, and Countryside

Streets of Pyongyang

The traffic in Pyongyang is virtually non-existent. There are hardly any cars driving around the streets. A traffic jam would be five or six cars at a huge intersection. As you drive through the city you would rarely see a car. There would be a number of cars that would zoom past, but for a city of 3 million people, there were few of them. Because of the hydroelectric shortage, there are not any streetlights lighting the streets once night falls. The streets descend into darkness.













North Koreans rely on public transit, and there are buses and streetcars that whiz along the empty streets. These buses and streetcars are usually bursting with people. These buses and streetcars look tight due to the packed conditions, but it definitely keeps the city clean from both air and aesthetic pollution.



Traffic Ladies

Instead of traffic lights, there are traffic ladies. There are some intersections with defunct traffic lights. Since hydroelectricity is unreliable and there are rolling blackouts, the traffic lights cannot be used. Thus, the traffic ladies become the traffic lights.



Apparently the traffic ladies must be of a certain height in order to see all the traffic and pedestrians. She must also be ‘beautiful’, by whose standards I do not know. She must also be highly intelligent since her job requires a high level of concentration and precise movements. She is, after all, responsible for the lives of Pyongyang drivers and for the smooth flowing movement of the city. Her job is done in hourly shifts, so the change of guard happens each hour.

The traffic ladies stand in the middle of each intersection within a circle demarcation on the concrete painted white. They are dressed in a militaristic uniform like everyone else in DPRK. The uniform is in a cerulean blue colour with white stripes. The uniform consists of a short skirt, sharp jacket with big metal buttons, a soldier-like hat, white gloves, black shoes, sunglasses, and a long rod. The rod indicates which way the traffic must move or stop. The rod lights up in a bright red when it gets dark. The traffic ladies stand at guard in the centre of the intersections and perform their traffic movements with military precision. They are so precise that they almost resemble robots. My friend Sean (the young economist from Australia) would always try to get the traffic ladies to covertly wave to him. He managed to break the concentration of about five or six of them, and they waved back, while some others smiled at him. He was proud of himself.






My first sight of a traffic lady was on our rainy first night in DPRK. Once we entered Pyongyang, we drove through a large intersection. The rain was coming down hard and it was dark, but the flashing red-lighted rod gave her away. As we drove past her, we could make out some of her uniform underneath a see-through rain-jacket that covered her entire body. We watched her precise movements, waving the rod, graceful even in the clunky rain-jacket, guiding the non-existent traffic. It was interesting to see, I had thought these traffic ladies were Communist myths.











Highways

We drove on many highways and country roads while touring around North Korea. The highways are covered in military checkpoints, which no one is allowed to take photographs of. There were military checkpoints set up, what seemed like, every 15 minutes. There are even military checkpoints near the 'entrances' to all the cities. North Koreans do not have freedom of movement within the country. This means that you are assigned to a city or town or collective farm and you must stay there. That is where you belong. Why would you want to go anywhere else? One can't even go to another city or place for a weekend getaway. If you try to leave your designated place of residence you must have a strong and legitimate excuse, otherwise it is a punishable offence under the law.

When we didnt have to stop for military checkpoints, we spent a lot of time driving along one of the country’s major highways – the Reunification Expressway – leading from Pyongyang to the demilitarized zone (DMZ). This highway would be DPRK’s equivalent to Canada’s 401 (or the Sir John A. Macdonald highway). The highway’s name is another example of the recurring theme of Korean reunification running through every aspect of North Korean society and life. North Korea believes that once reunification happens, the highway will buzz with traffic between Pyongyang and Seoul. The Reunification Expressway is considered an impressive piece of engineering since it cuts seamlessly through mountainous terrain, with 4 wide lanes, 21 tunnels – some very long and deep within mountains – and 23 bridges. The highway – along with most construction projects – was made from military labour. Although it’s a major highway with four wide lanes, there were no vehicles – let alone traffic – on the road. We passed only a handful of cars after a total of 4 hours on the highway. It was as though it were a ‘ghost’ highway or an abandoned highway.

North Korea is a mountainous country. Outside of Pyongyang, the countryside is framed by mountains. The highway cut through many of these mountains, and we passed through about 10 of these tunnels.


We also stopped at a North Korean ‘service station’ to and from Pyongyang, about half way to the DMZ. We were able to get off our tour bus and stretch our legs. Although we could go inside the abandoned looking futuristic style service station – the restaurant was above the highway; and it was too cold inside to hang out in there – we spent most of our time playing on the empty highway. We were taking pictures, running around, playing soccer, sitting in the middle of the four lanes, without a care in the world of being killed by traffic.

The following picture is the service station that had no electricity, running water, or heat. It seemed as though it was from a scary movie. The only sign of life was a freezing cold tea room on the second level.







Kaesong

While we were visiting the town of Kaesong – a city near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) with a population of 300 000 – we hung out on the empty streets taking pictures and chatting in small groups. A few of us even sat down in the middle of the street without any worry of being hit by an automobile. Tim took a few pictures of me sitting right in the middle of the road, with the Kaesong skyline behind me. There was the odd car and bus that zoomed by in the distance, but there was virtually no traffic in the city.

The following are pictures from downtown Kaesong.