From the 1970s through the late 1990s many of us who lived in Asia experienced traffic congestion in many cities that we visited across the region.  The reason was that citizens in many high growth Asian cities prospered and essentially moved from bicycles as primary transport to automobiles.  When this occurred, massive amounts of people got on to roads that did not have highways, express lanes and sufficient traffic lights.  Driving through those streets was chaotic to say the least.