Traffic congestion is a prominent problem in Beijing with
automobiles increasing by 10 percent annually and roads being
extended by only 2 percent. With this in mind, www.h5a3.com
interviewed Zhang Jianfei, a member of the Chinese People's
Political Consultative Conference and also vice-president of Plan
and Research Institute of the Ministry of Communication, who put
forward his own proposals on how to deal with the traffic problems
in Beijing.
The rapid increasing of automobiles seems to be overwhelming in
Beijing as people's incomes increase while prices of automobiles
decrease. Moreover, Zhang Jianfei said, price for housing in
Beijing is quite high, especially near the heart of the city where
houses go for as high as 10, 000 yuan (US$1,209.6) per square
meter. In response, residents who have to move to the suburbs also
buy cars as their means of transport. But development of roads has
not matched the rapid increase of automobiles. If appropriate
measures are taken, the resulting traffic congestion can be dealt
with.
How to deal with Beijing's traffic congestions? Zhang Jianfei puts
forward a five-point proposal:
- Increase fees for parking. Most car owners are high-income
people for whom the impact of a hike in parking fees will be
minimal, Zhang said. Beijing's parking fees now are much lower
compared with Shanghai, Guangzhou or Chongqing. For instance, it
costs 5 yuan (about 60 cents) an hour to park in Guangzhou, but
only 2 yuan (about 24 cents) for a whole day in Beijing. The low
parking fees only encourage random car-buying by Beijingers, and
reasonable parking fees can help deal with the traffic congestions
in Beijing.
- Add more parallel roads to form a more efficient network. Zhang
said road reconstruction in Being has a bad habit of favoring
widening of existing highways, unfavorable to addressing the
traffic problem. First of all, it's expensive and slow. Next, after
road-widening is completed, some of the roads just attract more
automobiles, giving rise to more problems.
- Widen crossroads that are traffic bottlenecks. Zhang explained
that crossroads get jammed because traffic lights reduce the flow
of traffic by about 50 percent or more to cause a series of traffic
jams or gridlock. People can see the problems at Xizhimen and
Chegongguang crossroads. Traffic jams still exist at Xizhimen
following costly reconstruction because of the bottleneck at
Chegongzhuang, a crossroad next to Xizhimen. Therefore, Beijing
should not expand its road system in an uncoordinated way. A
coordinated system connecting roads and their intersections will be
more conducive to alleviating traffic jams.
- Develop a better subway plan. Zhang said that since subway
construction is very expensive, every very inch of the subway
should be fully used. In foreign countries, any of two stations are
not far apart from each other, which is quite convenient for
people. While in Beijing, there is a long distance between two
stations. Moreover, Zhang said that the layout of the subway in
Beijing has shortcomings. Suburbs should not develop solely on the
subways. The government should first deal with the traffic problems
disturbing the residents in the urban city right now. Zhang said,
"which is more important, the on-going construction of Sihui to
Tongzhou County subway or Line 5, the subway connecting inner
city's Dongdan to Dongsi from south to north. Obviously, Line 5 is
more urgent."
- Scale back on taxis. Zhang said that Beijing now has so many
taxis -- 67, 000 -- that often travel empty, which means a great
waste of the traffic resources. It is rare in the world, Zhang
said, to see a taxi having to spend hours at an airport to wait for
its turn to pick up a fare as taxis do at Beijing International
Airport. The municipal government once required taxi companies to
provide enough taxis to make sure that people could get one at any
time. The proposal is quite good but adds to the traffic
burden.
Finally, Zhang said: "When Beijing hosts big events, the city
usually has traffic controls along adjacent roads that bring many
troubles to citizens. The present traffic conditions do not meet
the requirement of the 2008 Olympic Games. The problems should not
be dealt solely as a matter of money. Some measures that cost less
but are efficient should be taken into account.
(By Zhang Yan, china.org.cn staff reporter, translated by Unisumoon
March 15, 2002)
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