Olympic host city Beijing has ruled out any limits on the number of private cars allowed on the Chinese capital’s notoriously congested and polluted streets.

A top transport official said Beijing, whose air pollution and traffic jams are key concerns of the International Olympic Committee, will not follow the lead of Shanghai.

Liu Xiaoming, deputy head of Beijing’s transportation committee said, ‘Instead, we will encourage citizens to use their cars more rationally and sparingly.’
Liu was quoted as saying the city would concentrate on promoting use of a revamped public transport system so that ‘car owners will willingly give up driving’.

In fairness, the city of 17 million opened a major new subway line last month and slashed fares to encourage ridership. A new light-rail line connecting downtown Beijing with the city’s airport also is set to open before the August 2008 Olympics.

Beijing had 3.08 million registered motor vehicles as of August, an average of one for every two families and the number of cars is expected to continue to soar as the city booms.

About 90% of Beijing’s roads are currently operating at full capacity with little room for expansion. The chances of citizens willingly giving up their cars are the equivalent of a plastic cat walking through hell carrying a red hot shovel.

In London it has been proved beyond doubt or debate that they ONLY way to get the traffic down is by legal mandate and serious financial impositions.

In most of Europe the pedestrianisation of the cities has slowed the march of cars.

It has been shown by the City of London that cars always expand to take the space available. Good subways, a wonderful start. Banning cars, however, it the only way to make sure it works. This is a decision that everyone will live to regret. And regret bitterly.
Source: AFP

International Olympic Committee chief Jacques Rogges has said Beijing is running out of time to tackle bad air quality that could disrupt next year’s Games. He said some Olympic events may have to be put off because of poor air quality.

Jacques Rogge said, ‘Time may be running out, and the conditions required for the athletes competing in endurance disciplines might not be met 100% on a given day.

‘For this reason, we may have to reschedule some events so that the health of athletes is scrupulously protected.’

Far, far more reassuring was Hein Verbruggen, a top International Olympic Committee (IOC) official, who earlier said that pollution could put back some events but described such delays as ‘normal, standard procedure’ that would not detract from the success of the Games.

He stressed, ‘There is nothing, and I repeat nothing, that is of any risk or danger that we see for the organization of next year’s Games.’

Earlier the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) congratulated Beijing on a $12-billion clean-up which had been carried out since it won the right to host the Games in 2001.

Sarah Liao, Hong Kong’s former environment minister, who is an adviser to the Beijing Olympic organizing committee probably summed up the situation the best, ‘For the short period of the Games, air quality will be fine. Our challenge is curbing pollution over the long term.’

Beijing Vice Major Liu Jingmin, a delegate to the five-yearly Party congress, said at a news conference that the blue skies Beijing was experiencing was due to the wind coming down from the north that cleaned the air in the host city of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. He said, ‘Frankly speaking, we didn’t take any measures. It’s the weather that played the role.’ Such honesty in a politician is rare and is to be applauded.

Taking a longer view, however, the situation is improving.

In 2006, Beijing registered 240 ‘blue sky’ days, or days with fairly good air quality (the scientific definition is not clear), a rise of 64 days from the previous year. In September ‘blue sky’ days totaled 25, setting a record high in seven years.

Liu Jingmin, who is also executive vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games, said Beijing would materialize its promise of ‘Green Olympics’ by not only improving the city’s ecology and environment, but also adopting a ‘green’, environment-friendly, approach to the management of city affairs.

Partly this is being done by slashing bus and subway fares. Partly by doubling the tax on motorcycles, passenger cars, sedans and trucks.
Renewable energy has been widely used in the of Olympic projects. For instance, the residences of athletes in the Olympic Village will be installed with special heating and refrigerating facilities powered by energy tapped from a neighboring sewage disposal plant.
Photovoltaic technology based on solar energy is widely used in the competition venues.
The city’s first wind power plant has been set up in the north.
The city has moved 167 pollutive factories to the suburbs or remoter areas. At the same time of the removal, they have undergone technical innovations.
The city used to have 16,000 coal-consuming boilers. Now 15,000 of them have been upgraded to use clean energy forms.

Caijing magazine is an indispensable Chinese publication, conveniently now with an English-language website. Its Chinese name means economics and finance. Its editor, Hu Shuli, is one of the most influential women in China and is as brave as a lion. The business press in China has considerable latitude. She uses it.

In the latest issue: news on the ‘can Beijing possibly clear up its air before the Olympics?’ question. The magazine interviews Zhao Fengtong, vice mayor of Beijing with responsibility for traffic and related issues. The Asian Wall Street Journal has an English version of the full interview — Caijing’s English site has only a summary.

Zhao Fengtong discusses the recent experiment of banning half of Beijing’s cars from the streets for two days, to see what difference it made.

During the four days of experimentation, the entire city saw a decrease of 1.31 to 1.36 million vehicles on the road. This produced immediate results in air-quality improvement. The scientific information obtained from this provided a scientific basis on which to improve and perfect measures to guarantee Beijing’s air quality for the 29th Olympics. He is confident that there will be good air quality during the 2008 Olympics.
Source: Cajing

Will Beijing have clear air for the Olympic Games? All the indications are positive. There were 25 ‘blue sky’ days — days with fairly good air quality — in September which breaks a seven year record.

A spokesman with the Beijing Environment Protection Monitoring Center attributed the increase mainly to the frequent but weak cold air activities, which offered a favorable condition for atmospheric diffusion.

The city still needs 59 more such days to meet this year’s goal of 245 days.

The Chinese capital launched a drive ‘Defending the Blue Sky’ in 1998, when it only had 100 days of ‘blue sky’.

Last year, Beijing saw a total of 241 ‘blue sky’ days.

For the Olympics a lot more effort will be made including a ban on certain traffic.

During a four-day test of the traffic ban from August 17 to 20, about 1.3 million cars were barred from the city roads each day and the amount of pollutants discharged was cut by 5,815.2 tons. Cleaning up Beijing’s atmosphere probably can be done. And the government will not fail from a lack of serious trying.
Source: China.com