Beijing residents must participate the city’s lottery system... Drivers that don’t have this special plate will not be allowed into the city center during rush hour...
Beijing,China -Tainted Green, by Kathryn Robbins -December 27, 2010: -- As the Chinese economy grows, a new breed of middle class has emerged in the nation. Their increased buying power has given them access to items that were previously out of reach for many including the dream of buying a car. With this boom comes increased traffic and congestion in the capital, issues that the city hoped to curtail with a new license law which sent car sales in the city spiraling out of control and shocked Chinese automakers... Almost 4.8 million cars flood the capital’s streets each day and Beijing has struggled to keep up with the additional load with new parking garages and street construction... The government plans on reducing the number of license plates issued to Beijing residents to 240,000 in 2011; the city is on track to hand out 700,000 just in 2010. Starting on December 24th, Beijing residents must participate the city’s lottery system in order to snag a plate for their new ride. The majority of the plates will go to first time drivers, 2% will be allocated for commercial cars and trucks, and government vehicles will get 10%. Drivers that don’t have this special Beijing plate will not be allowed into the city center during rush hour... Residents certainly got the message about the 2011 license lotto and went on a buying spree; more than 30,000 new cars were snapped up in a single week. While the jump in sales is great news for car companies right now, the coming months will be a nightmare. Analysts predict that many of the lower-end dealers will be hit the hardest and almost half the dealerships in the city will be forced to close... (Photo: Beijing/China, highway traffic jam)
* China - Multiplying Drivers Run Over Beijing Traffic Plan
(Photo by Nelson Ching/Bloomberg: In September, a vacation exodus - for Autumn Festival - brought all of Beijing to a standstill, leading to 140 traffic backups in the evening rush hour)
Beijing,China -The New York Times (USA), by MICHAEL WINES -December 22, 2010: ... 280,000 new parking spaces; 1,000 share-a-bike stations; 348 miles of new subway track; 125 miles of new downtown streets; 23 miles of tunnels; 9 new transportation hubs; 3 congestion zones; and 1 cure-all, “the use of modern technology”... Part of the problem is poor planning. Curiously, a city of more than six million drivers has virtually no stop signs, turning intersections into playing fields for games of vehicular chicken. Freeway entrance ramps appear just before exit ramps, guaranteeing multilane disarray as cars seeking to get off try to punch through lines of cars seeking to get on... In September, another vacation exodus — this time for Autumn Festival — gridlocked the entire city, leading to 140 traffic backups in the evening rush hour... China's President Hu Jintao, was said to have rejected some of the more restrictive proposals as too draconian for a progressive national capital. The city opted instead to throw more traffic officers onto the streets... Thus, the latest draft proposal, a clear compromise of better public transportation — longer subways and bike racks — and the parking lots, tunnels and surface roads that Beijing’s auto-centric society craves. And it hints at more restrictive measures, including limiting new car purchases to buyers who can prove Beijing residence, or even capping the number of cars that can be registered here annually... The final proposal is set to be released on Thursday. But car-crazy Beijingers are not waiting for the bad news...
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