Supposedly, Beijing is removing 1 million cars from the roads between 7 August – 20 August (this year – 2008 will be more drastic). I’m not surprised by this and completely believe they can and will do this (did something similar last October for the China-Africa Summit). However, I didn’t notice any reduction in cars between the 7th – 10th.
Beijing has over 3 million cars on the road today…they add over 1,000 new cars to the roads each day. Why not stop adding? I know it’s not that easy…but for a government who can tell 1 million people they can’t drive for 2 weeks, why can’t they tell potential car buys they can’t buy for 1 year? Yes, this has other impacts (car sales, fuel sales, etc…), but there will be just that much more of a demand post Olympics – just start preparing for that.
Much of the city traffic, in my view, is caused by people walking and on bicycles. The “people watchers with flags” really don’t do much in the way of stopping people from walking or riding through the intersections when they aren’t supposed to.
Esteban…hopefully you’re reading over here now. In response to your comment below…
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Public transportation seems decent here (I’ve only been on it a couple times). They have tons of buses (which are always packed beyond capacity) – which add to the traffic nightmares. Subways are OK – they have a lot of work to do to expand them (I think they are adding 20KM in additional tracks before the Olympics). If I took the subway from home to work, I would have to walk 10 minutes, change subways twice, get on a train & then walk 10 minutes again … almost 2 hours. Plus, I’d be sweating like crazy during the summer.
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“Mike,
How does the mass transportation work in china? The only good way to prevent people from using cars (besides banning, which has too many negative impacts IMHO) is having a state-of-the-art mass transportation system that is fast (since nothing can compare with the comfort of sitting in one’s own car speed is the one advantage mass transportation can use as a battle flag).
As I watch Buenos Aires’ transit get more chaotic every single day due to more people and more cars and no smart investment in mass transportation I can’t help but feel that more cars filling up the same old streets and avenues, or making more highways is a dead end for any city that has a half-thinking city-planning ape in it’s ranks.”
Read the reply!
This might just be me, but I can foresee major cities collapsing unless there is some serious action in place to solve much of the stuff strangling them.
Lucky me: Lenovo is out of downtown and on the opposite direction of the main rush hour traffic (I take a train and a bus to get to the office)