Managing traffic still has some way to go

Beijing government officials and political advisers called for innovative ideas for the city's management, such as land use, traffic and parking, at a recent meeting of Beijing's People's Political Consultative Conference.

"There are three solutions to traffic issues - building roads, setting vehicle limits and improving management," said Zheng Wanhe, a political adviser and chairman of Wangfujing Department Store.

Zheng said the government has already invested a lot in building roads, and introduced vehicle restriction policies, but much remains to be done to improve traffic flow by detailed management, which "costs little but is effective".

He also said that the city center should be developed more for public functions rather than just commercial uses.

During the APEC summit in Beijing last year, the city government issued an alternating odd-even license plate number car ban to prevent smog. Zheng said that it is "unrealistic" for the odd-even car ban to become a long-term policy.

Zhou Zhengyu, director of Beijing Commission of Transport, agreed but said Beijing will continue traffic restrictions based on the last digit of license plate numbers this year.

In the past 10 years, Beijing has witnessed its GDP more than triple, its population increase by 6.5 million people and 3.3 million additional vehicles on the roads, but its traffic index reduced from 7.3 in 2007 to 5.5 last year, indicating that traffic jams are under control.

Zhou said that some new business models have contributed to easing traffic problems, one example being e-commerce.

"A postal worker delivering 120 packages a day could technically mean that 120 people do not have to go out shopping," he said.

Beijing now has some 5.6 million vehicles, but parking space for only 2.8 million. But just adding parking space is not the solution, said Jiang Yi, director of the Building Energy Conservation Research Center at Tsinghua University.

Jiang said there are two kinds of parking lots - those in residential communities and those in city center and downtown areas - and each requires a different solution.

"In residential communities, we should build as many parking spaces as possible so that every car has a 'home'," he said. "But it is just the other way around for downtown areas, where we should provide limited parking spaces so that fewer people would want to drive and more would choose public transportation."

Gao Yang, assistant director of the Beijing Institute of City Planning and Design, said he had surveyed 23 residential communities across Beijing and found that more than 85 percent of car owners "had never or seldom" been ticketed for parking illegally.

"The government's dereliction of duty has somehow granted them allowance, leading to fast growth and overuse of vehicles, which then brings about challenges in air quality and the environment," he said.