Beijing's auto sales crash

By Yu Miao

Beijing car dealerships endured a cold, lonely Christmas after the city announced Thursday an annual automobile-registration cap that went into effect Friday but failed to immediately relieve congestion.

According to the Beijing News daily, the number of jammed roads in the city reached more than 120 at 6 pm Friday, slightly fewer than the record-breaking 140-road congestion seen September 17.

"Friday and Christmas Eve, on the same day, mean a traffic nightmare," a taxi driver surnamed Liu told the newspaper.

The new regulations, announced Thursday after a series of citywide debates on how to fight the capital's traffic gridlock, include restricting the licensing of new vehicles to just 240,000 in 2011, increasing parking charges and expanding public transportation.

In 2010, more than 700,000 new cars were sold in Beijing, bringing the city's total number of cars to more than 4.7 million, the Xinhua News Agency reported, citing statistics from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport (BMCT).

According to the Shenyang Evening News, more than 20,000 cars were sold Thursday alone.

However, despite being touted as the toughest congestion-tackling measure in history, the new regu-lations are a far cry from what the general public sees as the best way to ease traffic.

Zhong Shi, a senior auto market analyst, told the Global Times that the new rules shed little light on Beijing's urban planning, which he called the root of the problem.

"Beijing's traffic problems were the legacy of the past, beginning with the unscientific city structure," he said.

"By separating residential districts from business districts, we artificially divided the city's functions, therefore the long distances between people's workplaces and their houses and shopping malls resulted in heavy traffic," he added.

Song Guohua, a professor specializing in urban planning at Beijing Jiaotong University, echoed Zhong's opinion, adding that the Beijing government encouraged people to buy cars before building more parking areas and roads.

"Unfortunately, this mistake is being replicated in many other cities in China right now," he said.

An official from the BMCT told the Global Times on condition of anonymity that Beijing's roads take up only 13 percent of the city's area - a minimal amount compared with the 33 percent proportion seen in some major cities overseas.

"The large number of official cars is also a problem," she said. "Although the Beijing government pledged to freeze the increase of official cars in the next five years, it has no say in the number of vehicles purchased by state organs."

A woman surnamed Liang, who lives in the north of the city but works downtown, blamed the problem on skyrocketing housing prices.