Put a bandage on it

• Source: Global Times
• [08:32 January 05 2011]
• Comments

Prioritizing transportation

Zhao suggested that future policies concentrate on facilitating public transportation, specifically busing. Currently, about 40 percent of people in Beijing's central area use public transportation.

"Since urban space is limited, the primary transportation tool in a city should be buses and subways," said Zhao.

"Our buses and subways are too packed. And bus travel time usually surpasses the range most people can tolerate."

The China Academy of Urban Planning and Design's Zhao said some of his colleagues spend four hours per day on buses or subways either because traffic jams delay them or because they have to transfer several times.

"Unlike cities such as Hong Kong, Beijing's subway planning lags far behind its city planning (mechanism).

And that means Beijing will have to explore more options for ground transportation such as buses," said Zhao.

Beijing has said it hopes that 50 percent of the people in the central city will use public transportation by 2015, with bicycles and passenger vehicles accounting for 18 percent and less than 25 percent respectively.

The capital city also proposed building more expressways, underground tunnels and subways, more parking lots, more bus services and public bicycle-rental kiosks.

Buses should be able to transport people quickly, and have stations and stops close to major residential and commercial districts, said Zhao.

He believes more dedicated bus lanes during rush hours would also help ease traffic.

Better planning urged

Zhang Xiaoyu, director of the China Machinery Industry Federation, told the Global Times that the heavy traffic in major Chinese cities is due to poor urban planning.

He said city-level governments usually have no central theme or focus while making plans on how to further develop cities. "They want a major city to be all things: a political city, a financial center and a cultural center," he said.

"Therefore, professionals in these fields choose to migrate to major cities, which pushes up population figures and increases and the number of vehicles on the streets. If every city had a different, specific focus, the population would be more spread out rather than crowded into one or two key cities."

Lu Jian, a professor of transportation planning and management with Shanghai's Jiaotong University, said Beijing should learn lessons from other cities in Southeast Asia, which are as crowded as Beijing.

"Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia increased parking and license plate fees for private vehicles. As for subways, in Tokyo subway stations can be found every 100 meters in the downtown," he said. He also called for safer roads for pedestrians and cyclists.

"In the past 20 years of city road construction, we've ignored the rights of pedestrians and cyclists. They find it increasingly difficult and dangerous to walk or ride bicycles on the roads because drivers speed and occupy both bike paths and crosswalks. The government should provide safer roads for these groups."

"Traffic laws and regulations should be enforced more strictly. More traffic police should get on roads to help guarantee more orderly traffic."

"Technical measures can also be a big help in making the roads safer. In Tokyo, when traffic lights turn red, all vehicles stop, giving way to pedestrians."