Beijing Traffic Set to Speed Up
Many Olympic visitors and Beijing residents were pleasantly surprised by the relatively low traffic congestion and cleaner air quality during the Olympics. Officials cut traffic in half, by only allowing vehicles with odd-numbered license plates on the odd days and even-numbered license plates on even days on the roads. Hundreds of thousands of high-emitting vehicles were also banned.
Despite these Olympic efforts, after the Games, a blanket of fog returned to the city, and the pollution index has risen from about 27 to over 100. Rather than simply accepting the higher levels of pollution, however, the government has new efforts to clean the air.
As of October 1, Beijing reduced the number of government cars on the road by 30%, and had them "sealed up for safekeeping." For the other 90% of Beijing vehicles, which are privately owned, a new October 11 regulation will require drivers to take one day off a week from driving based on the final numbers of their license plates. Authorities say this policy should keep about 800,000 cars off the road each day, and by next October, it will implement another ban prohibiting 300,000 high-polluting vehicles within the sixth-ring road.
Many citizens approve these new bans, which should help to improve the air quality, but will they be enough? While these measures might temporarily ease traffic congestion, Beijing residents put over 1,000 new cars on the road each day, which would account for over a million cars in just three years. Considering that Beijing only has 3.5 million cars, within just a few years, these efforts won't really make much of a difference in terms of traffic or pollution.
During the Olympics, several factories outside Beijing were shut down, which also greatly contributed to diminished pollution. Will regulations on the number of days vehicles can drive be enough?
While Beijing's efforts to curb pollution are encouraging, unfortunately Beijing's air pollution is only the tip of the iceberg. China is home to sixteen of the world's twenty most polluted cities, and only one percent of China's city-dwellers breathe air that would be considered safe by European standards. The World Bank estimates that nearly 750,000 deaths occur in China each year due to air pollution each year, and about half of China's citizens don't have access to clean drinking water.
Over the next few decades, policymakers will need to find solutions to these daunting problems, but at the very least, the new vehicle limitations and commitment of citizens to maintain a cleaner environm, may be a step in the right direction.