Highways congested on Lunar New Year's Day

SEOUL, Feb. 14 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's major highways were heavily congested
Sunday as many South Koreans headed home after visiting their hometowns for the
Lunar New Year's Day.+


The Lunar New Year's Day is one of South Korea's largest holidays along with
Chuseok, the fall harvest festival. Millions of citizens visit their hometowns
over the holiday to see relatives and pay respects to their ancestors.
This year's Lunar New Year Holiday is shorter than usual since it overlaps with
the weekend. The shorter holiday means more people are using the roads at the
same time, since most people have to go to work on Tuesday. Traffic was also very
heavy on Friday night as people headed for their hometowns.
Transportation authorities expected more than 25 million people, up about 10
percent from a year ago, would travel during this year's holiday period, many of
them choosing to drive.
Traffic on the Gyeongbu (Seoul-Busan) and other expressways was clogged in many
northbound and southbound sections, according to the Korea Expressway Corp.
As of 4 p.m., it took eight hours to travel to the capital city from Busan, South
Korea's second-largest city located 453 kilometers southeast of Seoul. The route
usually takes about five hours.
More than 187,000 vehicles were estimated to have returned to Seoul from regional
cities from 0 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, according to the officials.
"The traffic jam is likely to continue until late at night, as people started to
travel back to home," an official at the Korea Expressway said.
ygkim@yna.co.kr
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