Let’s nip traffic problems in the bud

It was my first visit to Shanghai since 2005, and everything here seemed quite new to me. But while taking a bus from Shanghai Pudong International Airport to the city center, I soon became accustomed to one particular new feature: the Shanghai traffic jam.

I know that traffic patterns in major cities in China are not all the same. It depends, in each case, on the city's infrastructure and the range of public transportation, as well as cultural and economic factors such as the location of business centers and people's desire to drive.

The traffic in Shanghai is more infuriating than in most other major Chinese cities because there are huge numbers of pedestrians and cyclists sharing the same roads. During my first few weeks in Shanghai, I struggled a lot with traffic. While returning home from my exchange university on a daily basis, I usually ran into the rush-hour swamp of exhaust, nauseating sounds of horns and curses, and cyclists riding haphazardly.

The city's elevated roads are often swarmed with cars at rush hour or during bad weather. Shanghai drivers are accustomed to traffic congestion, especially taxi drivers, one of whom told me that dodging in and out of traffic can bring them more passengers and hence more profits.

Many narrow roads seem better suited to horse-drawn carts or rickshaws than for modern vehicles. One driver doing a U-turn on a narrow road can hold up traffic for what seems like an interminable amount of time.

So how should these problems be addressed? On narrow roads, one solution might be to improve the flow of traffic by having pedestrians walk underground or on overpasses. These measures have already been carried out on some streets in commercial districts. Bicycle lanes might be created to counter the inevitable "drift" of cyclists towards the center of the road, where they become an impediment to the flow of the cars.

Another useful measure might be the implementation of the "protected left turn," whereby cars making left turns at an intersection have the "right of way" - meaning that they don't have to wait for a space in oncoming traffic before making their turn. To anyone familiar with Shanghai traffic, it is undeniable that cars making left turns always have an extremely hard time at intersections, largely because no one in oncoming traffic is gracious enough to slow down and let them through.

Further expanding the existing 11 lines of the metro system is a necessary step in any plan to improve Shanghai's traffic problem. It simply is much more convenient for people to cross town through underground subways. Hopefully, this improvement will decrease the number of people above ground as well as the number of buses.

Shanghai is a beautiful and modern city as well as an international metropolis, but it should not lose a chance to also be a place known for its efficient flow of traffic.