[sustran] When all the Chinese have cars! Update: Xiamen plans to build a bike traffic network

[eric britton]

On Behalf Of Rory McMullan
 

 


Dear Eric and others who may be interested,

On my extended tour of China, I am spending some days on the lovely car free
island of Gu lan yu, a few hundred metres across a narrow strait from the
busy town of Xiamen with its fantastic brand new BRT system.

Just a few days ago I visited the amazing folk at the local environmental
protection NGO XiaMen Green Cross, who organise the car free day here. They
told me the sad news that a man had been killed that morning on a bike, and
his head was completely squashed, making their job of promoting green
transport even more difficult. I suggested they should campaign get bike
lanes back into the city, since they have completely dissappered even though
the majority of people do not own cars. They of course told me that they had
been working to protect bike lanes for over a decade, so far without much
success, although some roads they have campaigned for, have now been
pedestrianised.

Then opening my email this morning, I found an email from a friend at
Beijing Transport University with this good news.... (translated using
google I'm afraid, but you should get the idea)

http://www.tranbbs.
<http://www.tranbbs.com/news/cnnews/Construction/news_36353.shtml>
com/news/cnnews/Construction/news_36353.shtml
Xiamen plans to build a bike traffic network 

Future in Xiamen, the public will be able to easily bike or walk by the
shortest route between the approach of district. In yesterday's mayor on the
green, Xiamen Planning Secretary Zhao Jing said, Xiamen Road, consider the
introduction of non-motorized system. 
   
    ÕÔ¾Ö³¤said that in the future, bicycle travel system will form a ring
around the whole city traffic. In Xiamen between every two residential
building, must be set aside a channel in order to protect the bike and
walking can be smoothly carried out, the public so long as cycling or
walking, you can easily reach another district. 
   
     In addition, Xiamen will be divided into three regions to build the
region on foot, and divided by color, which specifically refers to urban
green area built-up area outside the context of the mountain, mainly to
satisfy the public mountaineering, leisure, sports requirements; orange
region is the urban built-up area in the public walk from the main regional
daily life; blue Pro coastal cities in the region-specific public events
around the region, mainly to satisfy the public view of the sea pro-sea and
leisure requirements. It is learned that the life of the people of Xiamen
will be the main activities of regional planning for the 96 foot unit, in
which bamboo¹YLake, Zhongshan Road, Jiang first five geo-Bay, Kwun Yam Shan,
Maluan Bay, Xinglin Bay, filling the mouth ofÎ÷¿Â, Hsintien will focus on
the building. Important walking path, the width of the sidewalk of the
passage of not less than 3 m wide green spaces in the path of the
paragraphs, will be an integrated set of rest facilities green. Moreover,
exports to walk away from the track sites, bus stops, BRT site distance
generally not more than 100 meters.

--- On Fri, 12/12/08, Eric Britton <eric.britton at ecoplan.org> wrote:

From: Eric Britton <eric.britton at ecoplan.org>
Subject: [NewMobilityCafe] When all the Chinese have cars!
To: NewMobilityCafe at yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, 12 December, 2008, 4:11 PM

>From Lee Schipper: a 1972 article from the New York Times by Paul Ehrlich
and Douglas Pirages is one more reminder that there is nothing new in the
state of . . . The circumstances which currently confront our society and
economies worldwide are certainly not something which has emerged
unannounced in the last couple of years or months. 

 

It makes you ponder why we have not been able to put our collective
intelligence to work. Well, that is the past. Our job is to hang in there
and do the best we can with the challenges of the present and a future which
is already very much here. 

 

Eric Britton.




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