Limit the use of private cars, improve public transportation and encourage the use of bicycles, experts from foreign countries attending the China Planning Network 1st Urban Transportation Congress gave advice for Beijing to cope with its congestion during the Olympics on Friday.
Nigel H.M. Wilson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he was "supportive to the limit of private cars during the Olympic Games", so as to ease traffic jams, noting that in foreign countries, the method is also adopted during big events, but he was unsure about the approach.
China plans to keep an average of more than one million cars off the roads to improve traffic flow during next year's Olympics in Beijing, according to Liu Xiaoming, deputy director of the Beijing Traffic Committee.
Sharing Wilson's view, Dr. Yoshitsugu Hayashi, Dean of the Graduate School of Environmental Studies of the Nagoya University, believed that the limit of car use should be achieved not by forbidding, but through incentive.
"Drivers who don't use their private cars could be given extra points," he said, "and the points could be changed into goods from online shopping.
While Dave Wetzel, Vice Chairman of Board with the Transport for London and fellow with the Charted Institute of Logistics and Transport, said that private cars were limited in central London by high charges. "Cars going to the central district are charged with 16 dollars a day," he said, "so that they could be kept out in a more democratic way than being banned."
Wetzel stressed limiting the use of company cars. "Governmental officials should also be encouraged to use public transportation or ride bicycles," he said, adding that he himself is a bicycle-rider in London.
Matthew Martimo, Director of Traffic Engineering with Citilabs called it a special advantage for China that many people are traveling with bicycles. "Limiting private cars is an idea worth to try but it is just a temporary solution," he said, "the real reason of congestion is high density of people in Beijing and many have cars."
Beijing, with a population of 15 million, is home to more than 3 million automobiles, and the number is soaring at a rate of 1,500 a day.
Professor Wilson sees the Olympic Games a "tremendous opportunity" for Beijing to address the traffic woe and develop its transportation, adding that the city has already been making the public transportation more efficient. Beijing has pledged to stretch its 114-kilometer city railway to 200 kilometers before opening of the Olympic Games.
"We are looking forward to borrowing Beijing's experiences and drawing its lesson in preparation for the 2012 Olympics," said Wetzel.
Source: Xinhua
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