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City Reports Traffic Progress

Beijing officials on January 25 reported progress in addressing the city's current and future transportation needs, especially those related to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games.

But the officials said they are also turning their attention increasingly to the needs of rural residents of the municipality, both to help improve rural living conditions and to make it possible for rural Beijingers to participate in the 2008 Beijing Olympic economy.

Beijing Municipal Commission of Communication Vice-Director Liu Xiaoming said the city's 600,000 transportation employees are addressing its traffic needs in an open and effective way, but added: "Most of the world's megacities still have problems with traffic…Overall, the traffic system has improved. We are using all kinds of plans-regular, special and ad hoc-to meet various problems."

His remarks came during a press conference at the Beijing Olympic Media Centre. After the press conference, local and foreign journalists were taken to rural areas in Mentougou District to view some rural transportation improvements.

The challenge facing city planners is staggering. Liu said there were 30 million square metres of general construction projects under way in the capital's inner city in 2005 that affected traffic flows. About 360,000 new private vehicles joined Beijing's already snarled traffic mix-bringing the city's total private auto fleet to 2.538 million. With tourism and other international visitation to the city expected to increase-the city recently reported it had received a record 3.63 million foreign tourists in 2005-and because of the rapid development of the city, including the creation of several new suburban "city centres" that will house millions of new relocated residents, Liu said the city has dedicated 210 million yuan (US$25.93 million) over the past three years to speed work on 1,032 projects needed to improve the city's urban transportation system. The work includes scheduled construction of urban expressways, trunk roads and subway/light rail lines, which currently handle 200 million passengers per day. In addition to building 33 new roads that added 47.1 kilometres (km) to the city's urban network, the city has begun to rely increasingly on high-technologies and scientific approaches to upgrade the efficiency and capacity of its transport system and its management, including traffic accident management. He said this focus will continue through 2006, with the city hosting an "intelligent transportation" conference in February.

"We are seeking better management of the routes and connections to all the other transportation means…we're looking at the routes, not just the hubs."

Additional attention is being given to public transportation with 16.2 km of exclusive bus lanes being added in since 2004, bringing the total length to 121 km, which is expected to improve the speed and convenience of bus services, and the officials said a new BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) route will be added along Chaoyang Lu in eastern Beijing. Construction began on a new light rail line to connect the Dongzhimen stop on the Beijing Subway Loop Line to Beijing Capital International Airport. Two hundred sixty-four new subway train cars will be added to the city's oldest lines, Nos. 1 and 2. Market mechanisms, especially higher parking fees, are expected to be used to discourage people from driving private cars in the inner city, as is outlined in the General City Planning of Beijing for 2004-2020, which was issued in January 2005.

Liu said, "We are seeking coordinated development as explained in our white paper issued in April 2005."

The official said city planners will rely upon lessons learned in their investigations of the conduct of the 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Games and will create special traffic lanes for exclusive Games use during the Beijing Games on the city's Third and Fourth Ring roads. A high-tech, "intelligent" traffic administration and control system will be used to manage Olympic traffic congestion.

He said the city intends to build a "barrier-free" transport system that can be used by the disabled, whether local or foreign visitors or members of the Olympic Family to the Games, and said all new roadways being built must meet "green" standards that have been adopted by the city to ensure their beauty and environmental viability.

Under Beijing's socio-economic development plans, a great deal of the city's budgetary emphasis will shift to suburban and rural areas, with 10.7 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion) expected to be spent in 2005-07 to construct or upgrade 7,700 kilometres of rural roads in the municipality. Special attention is being given to 573 kilometres of roadways that have experienced exceptional accident rates, but the carrying capacity of cargo routes and tourism routes is also being improved. Numerous rural residents and villages are getting access to good roads for the first time ever, and those with "distinctive features" will get additional funding to upgrade their villages so they can handle an expected influx of new visitors.

But there's more to consider than just the numbers of vehicles and passengers in the city's transport plans. Vehicle-related pollution is also a concern.

Pei Chenghu, deputy director of the Beijing Environment Protection Bureau, said the city faces three serious constraints in dealing with automotive pollution. Beijing's topography does not favour the easy dispersion of auto-exhaust pollution in time, and even if it did, 40 percent of meteorological conditions in Beijing are unfavourable to such dispersion. Beijing is also affected by sandstorms and dusty conditions.

According to Pei, "We achieved the European Grade-2 criterion for gas emissions last year; this year, we're going to achieve the Grade-3 standard. In addition, the municipal environment protection bureau is requiring that cleansing agents be added to gasoline, a task to which SINOPEC and SINOCHEM have turned their attention. SINOPEC is also reportedly developing a high-grade diesel than can be used in conjunction with catalytic converters to make Beijing's diesel-powered bus fleet cleaner than its natural-gas-burning fleet on a cost-effective basis, this in coordination with the US Environmental Protection Agency.

To ease traffic flows, Liu said Beijing will test the use of a new fee-charging system on the city's toll roads in 2005. Drivers with a special intelligent chip attached to their windscreens, already in wide use in the United States, can drive through a toll booth, which registers the trip and assesses a fee through billing.

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Roadside Parks In Beijing

A new roadside park is just one of the improvements to National Highway 109, which winds its way through Mentougou District while connecting western Beijing on its east with Zhuolu and Laishui counties in Hebei Province to the west of the district.

Mentougou District authorities said that in addition to improvements to the road, which will make it more accommodating to all kinds of traffic, including tourist traffic expected during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, they have also upgraded the roadway's signage.

A spokesman said the new signs, setting speed limits and warning of upcoming sharp curves, have reduced the number of traffic accidents along the highway, especially in 573 kilometres of roadway that had been especially prone to accidents.

Deputy District Governor Wan Landong said the district is spending about 1 billion yuan (US$124.15 million) per year to upgrade about 40 kilometres of rural per year in the district, and has now linked 176 villages to its road network.

"Every family can now easily get to a road," Wang said, "But we hope to make it where all our families are linked by roads."

The importance of the move can be seen in the picturesque Mentougou District village of Pingyuancun, where the village, now served by a paved road and bus service, is preparing itself to receive Olympic visitors.

Villagers proudly led reporters on a tour of their "Jiefang Lu" (Liberation Road), a broad, stone-paved pathway that winds through the remote village, which is positioning itself as a "thousand year-old village" open to tourism along the lines of the more famous Cuandixia, also in the district.

Down the mountain, the road is lined with new apartments provided to area villagers on an affordable basis, but there are other new apartments with higher price tags being built nearby to handle an influx of new residents which are expected to accompany the "opening" of the county.

Wang said the road works are part of the basis "for accomplishing New Beijing, Great Olympics" in Mentougou.