Urban Ecoist

Ah, traffic. It really is the worst thing about city-living, and more and more cities across the globe are following the American model of individual vehicles for each driver. Our freeways are congested, and commute times rival the time you’d spend watching a sports game. If you have ever driven during rush hour on the interstate system in Atlanta, LA, Detroit, San Francisco, Tampa, Miami…you know what I am talking about. Well, more and more global urban centers are starting to see what I am talking about.

Location: Beijing, China — we all heard that some draconian driving laws started a little before the Olympic Spectacle began. Recent reports from China are detailing the utter confusion that most Beijing drivers are feeling with some of the new laws and their post-Olympic variants. It seems that back in July, Beijing made alternate-day driving a rule for two months…

Beijing launched new driving restrictions on Sunday [July 20] that will ban more than a million cars from its streets in a bid to rein in the city’s notorious air pollution and traffic for next month’s Olympics.

Traffic on the capital’s normally bustling streets was noticeably light on Sunday, even for a weekend, amid the new rules that will ban cars with odd- and even-numbered licence plates from the roads on alternate days for two months.–France 24/AFP

…and it was good.

Many in China seemed to approve, taking to the Internet to mostly praise the measures, which in the end produced bluer skies and generally smoother traffic flows. A survey of 5,058 people by the New Beijing News last month showed 68.9 percent supported the traffic controls based on odd- and even-numbered license plates, 19 percent objected to them and 12.1 percent had no opinion. Asked what they would do if the restrictions were to continue, 18 percent of interviewees said they would buy another car.

“Recently, it takes me nearly twice as long to commute than it did during the Olympics,” said Zhang Fengyan, 30, an appliance salesman. “The difference is too big. I’d love it if they can make this rule permanent.” –Washington Post Oct. 2

However, it seems that the more severe alternate day driving was easier to understand for most people. The one car-less day a week is further complicated when the day changes.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing car owners, many apparently puzzled by no-driving days designated by the last digit of their license numbers, now face revised rules which threaten even greater confusion.

The no-car days, introduced on Oct 11 to reduce gridlock and pollution, have apparently left so many drivers scratching their heads that one Beijing newspaper runs front-page notices each day to remind drivers which weekday they aren’t allowed to drive. –via ENN

I guess this week, the day you could not drive was moved back a day, and it threatening to destroy the whole system. Ok, I made that destroy thing up, but it is a little confusing when the days change on you, kind of like when your trash/recycling pick-up day is if it’s a holiday week.

Unfortunately, Beijing is only an example and a beginning to bigger headaches when it comes to transportation and its infrastructure and all of those darn cars polluting our skies. Think about it. Beijing has 3 million cars for its 17 million residents. That is one car per 5.6 people. In the whole of the United States, we have 250 million cars/trucks per 305 million people. So that is one car per 1.2 people. Think what Beijing would be like if it’s car ownership rate were the same as the United States.

Wait. Is it fair that I would compare Beijing to the whole of America and its multiple car households, instead of comparing Beijing’s numbers with another major urban center, such as New York City. It seems that Beijing is more like New York, if you look at these numbers.

From the New York Department of Motor Vehicles, in 2007, there were 1,738,970 registered personal vehicles in the whole NYC area. The population of the area is approximately 8,250,000 as of 2006. That’s about 0.2 cars per person in NYC. Beijing is 0.17, so it’s not far off from the US’s largest metropolis. The real problem is that Beijing is adding 1,000 new vehicles a day — if you figure 365,000 new cars a year, that represents a 12% increase. That 12% means that Beijing’s number of cars will double in less than seven years.

If I haven’t advocated it enough, this world really, really needs to figure out mass public transportation. It’s not so much that it is not available in some cities, it is that it’s seemingly ineffective. People don’t want to spend an hour on a bus or a train if they can drive themselves in their car in twenty minutes. Or what on a good traffic day is twenty minutes. More cars will mean more roads, more delays, and despite our best efforts at switching over to fuel-efficient vehicles and even electric cars, if we don’t cut the overall number of vehicles, we are all screwed.

Get a bike. Avoid suburbs.

Beijing, driving, traffic, Atlanta, Detroit, LA, San Francisco, cars, vehicles, Tampa, Miami, China, alternate day driving, laws, rules, per capita, New York City, NYC, New York, mass transit, public transit, bus, train