 Radio Broadcast: “Traffic notice. Now the cars in Huixin East Street drive slowly. Xizhimen and Huixin East Bridge are crowded. Yuanmingyuan East Road and Shangdi crossroad are crowded. Weiguan Street is crowded…”
This is the normal scene in Beijing’s afternoon when people have finished a whole day’s work. Living in the world’s most populated country, you have to deal with all these troubles, even if you own a speedy car.
Driving in Beijing is very tiring. Why? Because of the traffic jam. The traffic jam is too serious.
“I bought my first car in 1997. I didn’t feel crowded at that time when the traffic jams occur at just a handful of places. Now I feel that the traffic jam takes place everyday in the western 2nd and 3rd ring road.”
“I feel too much tense when driving each day. There are too many cars on road. There are too many traffic jams now, especially along the 3rd and 4th ring roads.”
Successfully have you reached your destination, but wait a minute before you boast of being a luck bird. Finding a parking place sometimes will bite more time and patience off you. And this turns out to be another problem haunting those who drive cars or long for a car.
Parking is undoubtedly inconvenient. I can park my car at my living place, but it will be impossible if I go shopping or go to the office. No way at all. There is no parking place. For instance, it took about 10 minutes to drive this distance which is measured at just 20 meters. Driving 20 meters in 10 minutes! Wherever you go, there is no parking place.
I think that it is a major problem now. it will be better to solve the parking problem. At daytime, parking at will occurs on the street which causes traffic jam. It worries us a lot.
Some measures have been taken to meet the growing demand for just a few square meters’ parking place. In the open space near some buildings, white line has been drawn to announce that it is now the room for the homeless cars. But even to enter this kind of shelter-like parking lot, you have to wait in line for quite a while. Comparatively, some roadsides become the conveniency for many drivers. It only takes them a few seconds to slide their cars where no car keeper stands. But safety always turns out to be a question.
The growing number of cars and the limited road form an enigma for people in Beijing and some other big Chinese cities. Then what’s the way out?
“As the number of cars increase, the roads seem to be not enough. Solution should then be found to raise the efficiency of the current roads. For instance, one solution is to develop the ITS, namely the Intelligent Traffic System to increase the capability of the traffic flow on the current roads. At the same time, we have to build more road as needed. Thus we can improve our road condition. They should be done in supplement to each other. On the other hand, the requirement for the supporting system in a building becomes higher. It also raises higher demand for the social supporting system. For instance, a great number of public parking lots needs to be built. Meanwhile, parking places should be considered during the construction of a building, such as the underground parking lot and those nearby,” said Zhang Zhiwen, Official of Ministry of Science and Technology.
“In my opinion, traffic jam nowadays occurs mainly in the urban areas in China. Given the length of roads built in China, the average road length that each car has is not less than that in other countries. However, in urban areas, for instance in Beijing, there are no more than two million cars, while there are more than four million in Tokyo. It is no more crowded there than here. A problem comes as to whether the integrated planning and management can catch up. We develop our auto industry first, and then we can solve relevant problems. Take the ring roads in Beijing as an example. During peak hours in the morning, most people feel it hard to go to the downtown area, while it is much easier to come out of the city center. The reason is that the majority of people drive toward the city center. This is a problem concerning the planning of the roads and the commercial zones. The city structure should be a divergent form,” said Ouyang Minggao.
With its existing overall arrangement and structure, the city is not able to contain an unlimitedly growing number of cars. Besides, people don’t want to live in a crowded box where they can only breathe in the dirty air caused by the slowly moving cars. The more time the cars stick to the road, the more waste gas will be released from the tail pipes. Another problem then comes. That’s the car pollution, which has turned many cities in the world noted for its high-pollutant air. And this must be considered a lesson that china should take.
“Car pollution includes CO and particles, etc. People can feel the particles on a bus stop when seeing the black smoke left by a bus. While CO and other pollutant are invisible. Now we can check the degree of pollution caused by automobiles in a city through the air quality monitoring data. The roadsides suffer 40 to 70 percent of the pollution. In order to contain the invisible pollutant in the air, we must reduce the pollution degree,” said Li Pei, official of State Environmental protection Administration.
How to reduce car pollution? One solution is to add more modern technology to the newly produced automotive vehicles, which can gradually replace the old models.
“Auto vehicles have been upgraded to great extent. For instance, replaceable fuel technology has been applied on the buses here, which used to cause much pollution. Responsively, pollution has decreased much. Although the number of buses and taxis accounts for just 10 percent of the total vehicles, their traffic mileage in the urban areas overpasses 50 percent of the total. They will exert big impact on the urban pollution. On the other hand, our tail-gas effluence technology has been improving from Euro I to Euro II, then further to Euro III. Such a process will help reduce the pollution brought by the Chinese auto industry,” said Zhang Zhiwen, Official of Ministry of Science and Technology.
The measures to lessen car pollution are also closely related to the goal of producing more energy efficient automobiles, which are environment friendly.
“In many countries including Italy, the Netherlands, and the U.S., automobiles powered by replaceable fuel have already been put to use. That such a technology will have effect on the reduction of urban pollution is universally accepted. So replaceable fuel is increasingly used in many developed countries. In the long run, it will become one of the trends. In the near past in China, the carbinol fuel and alcohol made of grains are also put on trial use,” said Zhang Zhiwen.
Generally recognized as the most important energy source, oil is used to fuel almost all the cars running on road. However, being well aware of the threat of energy shortage, more auto manufacturers now devote much to the development of applicable models, which consume clean fuel or replaceable fuel. This is a trend for the auto industry of the world as well as of China. More attention should be paid to seeking an harmonious progress of both modern technology and our human society.
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