HONG KONG — Maybe a giant tram rolling over pesky cars clogging the streets wasn’t the answer to China’s traffic congestion woes. A Chinese inventor’s plan to develop such a vehicle, called a “traffic-straddling bus,” has been effectively killed after 32 people from an investment company that backed the project were arrested.

The bus was designed to ride on tracks, but with its body elevated so that two lanes of traffic could pass underneath. Some 1,200 passengers were to have ridden between specialized stops.