Beijing unveils new traffic controls

by chowdawg | September 29, 2008 at 02:07 pm

1613 views | 19 Recommendations | 36 comments

Beijing has decided to permanently implement some of the stiff traffic controls that it has originally enforced during the August Olympics. Return to normality following the end of the games has prompted officials to find ways to reduce the congestion. The controls will be on a much smaller in scale than the massive overhauls made during August. A 6-month trial goes into effect on October 11th.

Cars will be banned from the roads one out of five weekdays, in a system based on the number of their license plate, and 30 percent of government cars will be taken off the road entirely, the official Xinhua agency reported.

Department stores will open and close an hour later and the government will encourage companies to allow flexible working hours or change their shifts to ease the rush hour traffic that brings parts of the city to a near standstill.

It is also considering raising downtown parking fees.

Under the new system all cars will be free to circulate at weekends. On Mondays cars with license plates ending with 1 or 6 will be banned, on Tuesdays those ending with 2 or 7, on Wednesdays 3 and 8, on Thursdays 4 or 9 and on Friday 5 or 0.

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Milieunet

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 09:12 on October 3rd, 2008

chowdawg, I like this story. It's good stuff.

icebear

at 07:30 on October 5th, 2008

A particularly hideous day just one week prior to the Olympics Opening Ceremony. Taking from a 23rd floor at Sihui Dong, facing east along the Jingtong Expressway.

icebear has contributed a photo to this story.

jose karlo jkfo

at 10:27 on October 10th, 2008

This picture was taken at 5.45 AM aprox in a working day and traffic was just starting.

jose karlo jkfo has contributed a photo to this story.

Raniero Corsetti Giusti di Ripalunga

at 09:00 on October 16th, 2008

Driving style in Beijing is dense and worse than in Naples. Everybody who has ever been in that beautiful italian city knows exactly what I mean. Being in traffic in Beijing is simply scary from the foreigner point of view. Though it is still not understandable to me how can it be possible vehicles do not keep hitting each other all the time. I think that's true Far East magic happening. By the way, the shoot was taken because I loved the contrast between the rather ugly utility car and the Transformers' sticker. Could it be a possible true Chinese Fake Transformer ?

Comment's a bit OT.. I know.

Raniero Corsetti Giusti di Ripalunga has contributed a photo to this story.

Aimee Sun-Khonghun

at 19:57 on October 21st, 2008

This photo was taken in 2006 from an overpass or pedestrian bridge in Zhongguancun (I.T. district of Beijing). Although roads in the city are verrry wide, traffic congestion has always been a problem... Anyway, we just hope that the newly implemented traffic scheme will work for the city..

Aimee Sun-Khonghun has contributed a photo to this story.