Non-licensed cabs entering controlled area by Expo Park
- Source: Global Times
- [09:26 May 18 2010]
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A traffic officer allows a regular taxi to enter the controlled area near the Expo Park on Shiboguan Road Tuesday morning. Photo: Cai Xianmin
By Zhang Cao
With luck on their side, visitors heading to the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai during the day may be able to hail down a regular cab to get into the park as entry to the traffic-controlled area for licensed vehicles only appear to be relaxing.
Non-designated Expo taxis have been bringing visitors into the 7-square-kilometer area near the Expo Park without a problem this week despite a ban that prohibits regular cabs from entering the zone from 7 am to 9 pm daily.
With the six-month event seeing a daily average of fewer visitors than originally projected since opening, more than a handful regular taxis entered the controlled area Tuesday morning within the span of a half-hour, passing traffic police with ease.
"We do try to persuade regular taxi drivers not to enter," a traffic officer guarding the controlled area who declined to disclose his name told the Global Times Tuesday. "But we do tend to allow them to enter, especially if they are carrying elderly people or people with a disability."
The regulation prohibiting regular cabs from entering the zone was announced last month with the intention of reducing traffic congestion at the park, said officials.
But the possibility of being slapped with a 200-yuan ($29.30) fine for disobeying the regulation has not prevented a number of non-licensed cab drivers from taking their chances.
"When customers ask me to go into the controlled area, I cannot refuse them," a regular taxi driver speaking on the condition of anonymity told the Global Times Tuesday. "So far, I have not been stopped, but I do worry about the fact that I could be fined."
As of Tuesday, not one single regular taxi drivers had been fined for entering the area, according to the traffic officer at the controlled area.
Apart from the 4,000 designated Expo cabs, only police cars, fire trucks and specially licensed vehicles are allowed to enter the controlled area during the day.
Meanwhile, the police bureau in charge of the controlled area said it was unaware that the restrictions had been loosened.
"In fact, to my knowledge regular taxis are supposed to be strictly banned from entering the area from 7 am to 9 pm," an officer with the traffic division of the police bureau in Pudong New Area, who declined to disclose his name, told the Global Times Tuesday.
