 |
Strategies Set to Improve Urban Transportation in Beijing
"Our aim is that vehicles entering into the freeway system from any point in urban area will find a thoroughfare without intersections and be able to reach any other point with no red light ahead. The driving time in urban area will be brought within one hour," said Wang Guangtao, vice mayor of Beijing.
The remark was made at a conference for city construction on January 16. Wang said that Beijing had mapped out three major strategies to ease the heavy traffic jam in urban area. One is to attach enough importance to both ground transports and subways. The second is to form three systems of expressway, trunk roads and a dense network of roads in city center. And the third is that priority is given to develop public transportation with focuses laid on construction of parking system and interchange stations.
As to subway construction, the line from Bawangfen to Tongzhou, city rail and the No 5 subway have entered into a trial stage. The draw of ground transports has been laid out to include a freeway system consisting of four ring roads and 10 connecting lines without any intersections. In recent two years, improvement has been made on the second and third loops with the fourth one basically completed.
Roads fanning out from the city center to join the major ring roads will form a network in the city to make the traffic much easier. In this regard projects have been or will be kicked off at such places as Deshengmen, Xizhimen, Wanquanhe and Lianhualu.
Besides, priority will also be given to a batch of main avenues in support of environment facilities construction and rebuilding of old houses or those in jeopardy and the road density in the old city area will be raised.
We are fully confident that years of perseverance in these strategies will result in a remarkable improvement of the transport conditions in Beijing, says Wang.
By PD Online staff member Li Heng
In This Section
|