What Will Beijing's 2m Motor Vehicles Bring about?

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, August 17, 2003

What Will Beijing's 2m Motor Vehicles Bring about?

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The registered number of motor vehicles in Beijing exceeded 200 million on August 4, including 1.28 million individually owned ones, or 64 percent of the total number, and 800,000 private cars, or 40 percent, announced the Beijing Municipal Traffic Management Bureau.

Currently the city has 30.5 individually owned vehicles and 19 private cars among each hundred households, and one person out of four a driving license holder. Beijing has firstly, among other Chinese cities, stepped into a society of automobiles.

It took Beijing 48 years to go from having a few thousands of cars in the 1950s to 1 million, but only six years and a half to leap over the second 1 million, seven years ahead of plan. During the first seven months of this year the city saw 190,000 newly added vehicles, or 27,000 on monthly average. If the current rate of increase continues Beijing may have 3.5 million cars by the year 2008.

The spreading of cars has brought much convenience to people's life and also created many car-related job opportunities. However, behind the changes in life style and the booming auto economy, frictions stand out inevitably between car and road, car and men and car and environment.

Compared with other big cities such as Tokyo and New York who boast 4 or 5 million vehicles each, Beijing's current 2 million cars, or even 3 million in near future, is still within an acceptable range. However, the problems behind the 2 million cars can never be neglected.

First is traffic jam. Increased car number and construction on the side road of the Third Ring Road bring new problems and serious jams form in certain sections. Whether to restrict the purchasing and using of private cars leaped into people's attention again. Actually the problems brought by the development of cars should also be solved in a developing view, instead of by simple restriction. Experts say that Beijing's current mileage and construction plan entirely enable the city to hold more cars, and the key lies in raising traffic management standard and road efficiency.

On the roads we often meet the scenes--the red light is still highly on when on the crossing direction all cars have passed; a single accident causes serious jam; improperly installed entrances and exits lower the speed of cars on ring roads. All these, on top of technical reasons, reflect on the city's backwardness in road planning, traffic management ideas and management mechanism.

An automobilized society also calls for automobile civilization. Since last June Beijing's road accidents surged with the accident number and death toll rose 27.1 and 22.2 percent respectively over the same period of last year. One of the main reason, analysis shows, is the road taking of newly qualified, inexperienced drivers. Besides, breaches such as drunk driving and neglect of speed limit remain the main culprits of accidents.

In fact, we have much more incivilities around us which not only upset traffic order, kill others' time but lay down hidden perils. A society of automobile brings people a convenient and speedy way but also raises the demands on their moral principles, behavior codes and the city's management capacity and efficiency. To enjoy the automobile civilization we need a society running in good order, which requires everyone's efforts including you and me.

By PD Online Staff Li Heng

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