Clear view for the Games? It’s too early to tell
Shi Jiangtao and Al Guo in Beijing – Updated on Jul 21, 2008 – SCMP
Beijing kicked off massive traffic restrictions and building bans yesterday in a bid to clean up the city’s air ahead of the Olympics, but the real test of the measures is yet to come.
While traffic eased slightly yesterday and the sky appeared clear after thunderstorms, authorities admitted it was too early to tell whether the stringent new measures had worked.
“It’s a Sunday and there are not as many cars on the roads as during the week,” said Zhou Zhengyu , deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications. “The real test comes tomorrow during the morning rush hour.”
After shutting down polluting factories in and around the capital and restricting Beijing-bound cars from neighbouring provinces, Beijing yesterday banned construction work and imposed an odd-even licence plate restriction for the next two months.
Drivers whose cars have licence plates that end in an odd number were banned from the road yesterday and those with even numbers will be off the road today.
Beijing also opened three new subway lines, including an Airport Express line, and began operating 286km of Olympic traffic lanes designated for athletes, officials, dignitaries and the media.
But the Olympic lanes vexed drivers. Many complained they had worsened traffic jams in main streets, such as the Second Ring Road, and they expected things would get worse today.
Beijing also launched 10 Olympic shuttle bus lines to competition and training venues and opened a new transport hub in Dongzhimen , which is only half-finished.
The 28km Airport Express line, similar to the one in Hong Kong, will run every 15 minutes between the new Terminal 3 at Beijing’s airport and Dongzhimen station. The line can carry a maximum of 30,000 passengers a day.
Although the scheduled in-town check-in will not be ready until after the Games, the new airport line was widely praised for its convenience. “I think this is great. It’s a much preferred alternative to driving or taking a taxi,” said Robert Burrahm, a Beijing representative of US Southwest Research Institute.
The new traffic restrictions are estimated to take about two-thirds of the city’s 3.3 million cars off the roads.
But indications on the first day of the traffic ban were inconclusive because the traffic was light in the morning and early afternoon but congestion returned to some busy areas later in the day.
Meanwhile, thousands of building sites within the Sixth Ring Road were also ordered to halt work yesterday, forcing hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to leave the city.
Additional reporting by Edwin Lee