For quite a while I’ve been wanting to talk to you about transportation in Beijing, so finally I begin these installments with a little about cars in Beijing.
There is a lot of money in Beijing, and you see many Mercedes, Audis, Porsche SUVs, Range Rovers, VWs, etc. What you don’t see are Lexuses because, after all, they’re Japanese. You don’t see many sports cars, though here’s one:
Expensive cars (small Porsches, large BMWs, etc.) are common on the campus of Renmin University. They are students’ cars, of course, from wealthy families who spoil their children, something else that is very common here in China.
Beijingers complain a lot about bad traffic, which, I admit, often moves at a snail’s pace. But they think it’s due to too many cars. Only partly true. My keen observational skills have led me to discover that the number of cars is not the primary reason for lousy traffic in Beijing. Rather, it’s NOT ENOUGH PARKING. They continue to build lots of big buildings in Beijing office without ANY parking. Nothing underground, nothing on top, nothing off to the side. I’ve been told very specifically that this is done intentionally to discourage people from driving to work.
Doesn’t work. They drive into downtown Beijing, then creep around, looking for a place to park. They park all over the sidewalks, sometimes in designated parking places painted onto the sidewalks, and just as often simply any place they can fit their car.
In most American municipalities, this narrow street (adjacent to my school) would be a one-way, no-parking avenue. There is in fact “No Parking” signs on the sides but they are completely ignored – and they have yet to convert this, or any similar street, as far as I can see, to one-ways. The result is that quite often we have incredible traffic jams here with cars trying to go both ways while avoiding the illegally parked cars.
Fortunately, I’m pretty adept at maneuvering my bike through this mess.
One day I was riding home down this street and saw a piece of paper on the window of a car.
Looking closer I was amazed to see a parking ticket, the only one I’ve seen in 2+ years here.
And in that time I have seen only one person stopped for a moving violation, and that was in Chengdu, not Beijing.
Occasionally you come across a car parked with boards leaning against the wheels. Can you guess what they’re for? I couldn’t. (Or did I tell you already?)
This guy is turning around, awkwardly and slowly, holding up traffic for quite a while.
The thing that bothers me the most about drivers here is their total arrogance and total disrespect for pedestrians and cyclists (and each other). In the photo below the pedestrians have a green walking sign but the driver pays no attention.
This is more than common; it’s routine, even when there are 100 people trying to cross the street. Drivers often approach the intersection honking their horns and barely slowing down, expecting the pedestrians to jump out of the way even though they (the pedestrians) have the green light. The pedestrians do in fact stop and jump out of the way, which only encourages drivers to continue their behavior. I am possibly the only pedestrian in Beijing who does not yield to drivers exhibiting this behavior, and though I’ve had many close calls (one with a bus), I refuse to encourage the drivers by letting them push me around.
At major intersections during peak times of the day there are traffic wardens who try to control the pedestrians. Sometimes they have cute signs,…
…sometimes they appear more serious in vests and with flags,…
…and sometimes they are apparently high school student volunteers.
Most of the time the pedestrians, carts, and cyclists ignore these wardens, but this guy is one of the few to get serious. He was persistent in trying to get these carts to come back, out of the intersection, so cars could get by. The cart guys made half-hearted, mostly insincere, attempts to circle back until the light changed and they moved on.
You see lots of the usual, lumbering SUVs in Beijing, which is weird in a city that is flat, sees virtually no snow, and has few large parking spaces. Status is a big deal here. But poor people also want motorized vehicles, and some of these can be pretty small:
In the photo below you see most of the pedestrians, cyclists, etc. staying behind the two wardens, who were relatively aggressive in performing their duty. They argued with and yelled at the two girls on the motor scooter but the latter simply ignored the wardens and stayed put, slowing the right-turning traffic. Obviously, traffic wardens need enforcement power. More generally, Chinese people need to get into the mode of following rules where enforcement is minimal.
People complain about the traffic in Beijing and blame it on the number of cars. I’ve studied the traffic situation here (anecdotally, of course) and find that the principal problems are related to (1) pedestrians, bicycles, and carts, (2) parking, and (3) poor urban planning. I’ve just described a little about the pedestrians involvement, but there’s more to say to bring some balance. I resent the drivers who honk and cruise through crosswalks full of pedestrians and cyclists who have the green light. On the other hand, if a driver comes to an intersection with no light, he is faced with a bigger problem: There are so many people in China’s cities that there is a constant stream of people crossing the street. None of these people stops to wave a car through, so the only way a car can progress is to be aggressive.
There’s so much more to say on this subject, I’ve decided to terminate this post now and call it Part 1. More later.
It’s good to be back.
保罗
DC's Asian Adventures 