[sustran] Car Free Day - China set to enjoy a day without cars

[Eric Britton]

China set to enjoy a day without cars 

Ji Mi
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/art/2006/12/04/298863/China_set_to_enjoy_a_
day_without_cars.htm

2006-12-04 

SHANGHAI will join more than 70 cities across China next year to promote
a Car Free Day  and encourage commuters to use cleaner forms of
transport. 

Taking a cue from , China has set aside the week of September 16-22,
2007, as its first public transport week. And on the final day, private
car owners will be asked to leave their vehicles at home and ride bikes,
use mass transit or walk to work, school and shopping, Qiu Baoxing,
deputy minister of construction, told a national meeting in Beijing on
Saturday. 

If all private cars stayed off the streets for 24 hours, China would
save 33 million liters of gasoline, reduce urban pollution 90 percent
and prevent an untold number of deaths and injuries from traffic
accidents, authorities said. 

In addition to Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Chongqing and Hangzhou have
also promised to join in. 

Authorities said compliance by motorists will be voluntary but that some
streets in all the cities taking part will be blocked to private cars. 

France initiated the no-car day in 1998, and two years later, the
European Union's environmental agency kicked off European Mobility Week
on September 16-22, which also featured a car-free day. The
environmental exercise has since expanded to more than 1,000 cities
across Europe. 

Qiu said China's program is designed to raise public awareness about the
need for greater environmental protection by encouraging urbanites to
use less polluting forms of transport. 

Rush-hour traffic jams often turn major roads in big cities into parking
lots, Qiu told the meeting. 

In downtown Beijing, 60 percent of the 183 major intersections suffer
serious jam-ups, Qiu said. 

China's capital has 2.82 million cars on its streets, and the number of
new ones is increasing by 1,000 a day, cutting vehicle speeds to about
half of what they were 10 years ago. Across China, a city bus commute
takes 10 minutes longer than it did a decade ago, and that's why 70
percent of urban residents are dissatisfied with bus services, according
to Qiu. 

Traffic jams cost the country about 250 billion yuan (US$31.65 billion)
in lost productivity in 2003, or two percent of that year's gross
domestic product, the official said. 

Qiu urged city governments to improve public transport efficiency, give
priority to buses, shorten transfer time between buses and invest more
funds into the public transport system. 

Fewer than 10 percent of city residents use public transport across the
country on average, he said. 

In large cities the figure is about 20 percent, compared with 40 to 60
percent in major metropolitan areas in Europe, Japan and South America. 



 

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