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Sunday 31 January 2010
Beijing mulls staggered hours to cut traffic jams
Beijing is considering changing office hours for businesses and public organisations and raising parking fees in the capital’s central districts in its efforts to deal with the traffic headaches caused by private cars.
Beijing is considering changing office hours for businesses and public organisations and raising parking fees in the capital’s central districts in its efforts to deal with the traffic headaches caused by private cars.
Vice-mayor Huang Wei said the municipal government was considering a plan to stagger working hours, as had been done during the 2008 Olympics, the Beijing Times reported.
“There are too many cars on the streets, and everyone is complaining about gridlocked roads even though we have yet to see a complete traffic breakdown,” he said on the sidelines of the city’s annual legislative session.
Huang said soaring car ownership has not only created traffic jams and put a strain on transportation management but also causes thousands of traffic accidents every day.
The number of private cars in the city reached four million last month. More than 1,500 more cars hit the road in Beijing every day.
According to Huang, flexible working hours is one of three measures the government is considering in the face of mounting pressure to ease the gridlock.
Most government bodies, enterprises and shops in the capital changed their hours to ease congestion during peak times for two months during the Olympics.
Huang said that experiment had achieved results but admitted that research on the proposal to stagger working hours remained at an early stage.
“There’s a huge amount of work ahead before we can come up with a comprehensive plan that takes various government and business institutions into account,” he said.
Beijing had studied similar plans last year, local media said, but Huang did not explain why they fell flat.
He said the city was also considering a shuttle bus service for students, to reduce congestion near schools.
A plan to raise parking fees in the downtown and the main business districts would be released soon, Huang said.
Professor Shi Qixin, a former head of the Institute of Transportation Engineering at Tsinghua University, said restrictions and other traffic control measures might be necessary, but “for a highly populated metropolis like Beijing, the ultimate solution to traffic woes is to develop a comprehensive and convenient public transport system.”
1 comment:
Beijing mulls staggered hours to cut traffic jams
Shi Jiangtao in Beijing
29 January 2010
Beijing is considering changing office hours for businesses and public organisations and raising parking fees in the capital’s central districts in its efforts to deal with the traffic headaches caused by private cars.
Vice-mayor Huang Wei said the municipal government was considering a plan to stagger working hours, as had been done during the 2008 Olympics, the Beijing Times reported.
“There are too many cars on the streets, and everyone is complaining about gridlocked roads even though we have yet to see a complete traffic breakdown,” he said on the sidelines of the city’s annual legislative session.
Huang said soaring car ownership has not only created traffic jams and put a strain on transportation management but also causes thousands of traffic accidents every day.
The number of private cars in the city reached four million last month. More than 1,500 more cars hit the road in Beijing every day.
According to Huang, flexible working hours is one of three measures the government is considering in the face of mounting pressure to ease the gridlock.
Most government bodies, enterprises and shops in the capital changed their hours to ease congestion during peak times for two months during the Olympics.
Huang said that experiment had achieved results but admitted that research on the proposal to stagger working hours remained at an early stage.
“There’s a huge amount of work ahead before we can come up with a comprehensive plan that takes various government and business institutions into account,” he said.
Beijing had studied similar plans last year, local media said, but Huang did not explain why they fell flat.
He said the city was also considering a shuttle bus service for students, to reduce congestion near schools.
A plan to raise parking fees in the downtown and the main business districts would be released soon, Huang said.
Professor Shi Qixin, a former head of the Institute of Transportation Engineering at Tsinghua University, said restrictions and other traffic control measures might be necessary, but “for a highly populated metropolis like Beijing, the ultimate solution to traffic woes is to develop a comprehensive and convenient public transport system.”
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