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Peddling pedal power: Hangzhou leads the nation in public bike rental
By Sun Jinxia and Wu Qi |
May 7, 2009, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE other side of tranquil Hangzhou is its terrible traffic at rush hour. But the nation's first public bicycle rental is easing the city's pain and leading the way to a better life. Sun Jinxia and Wu Qi report.
In China's bustling metropolises, rush hours are nightmares for office workers each morning and evening. East China's Hangzhou, known for its charming scenic spot West Lake, is no exception.
Every day, about 460,000 motor vehicles, including 360,000 private cars, are running in an endless stream along downtown streets of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province.
About 50,000 vehicles are added each year to the worsening traffic jams. The average driving time from residential areas in the western part of the city to downtown offices, has doubled from about 15 minutes two years ago to 30 minutes today.
During rush hours, it takes around 10 minutes to crawl over the 100-meter-long bridge approach to access overpass lanes leading to downtown areas.
Li Meng, a section manager of a foreign-funded company in downtown Hangzhou, could no longer tolerate the jams, and bid adieu to her favorite red roadster early this year, after stinging criticism from her boss for being late.
At 7:30 one morning in January, Li drove her roadster from her home in the Cuiyuan Residential Quarter in western Hangzhou and joined the stream of cars heading downtown. In half an hour, Li finally hit the Zhonghe Overpass Road that runs from the north to the south of Hangzhou.
To her bewilderment, the vehicle flow remained locked solid for 10 minutes. She looked at her watch, and there were only 15 minutes left for her to chair a meeting in the office. Li fidgeted and was vexed that she couldn't leave her car and run to her office.
She was late again and the boss was angry. Li, in her 30s, tried another way of getting to work - a bicycle. It was just an experiment at first, but she came to love bicycling and has been doing it for months.
The ride for half an hour in the fresh air along West Lake refreshed Li and she found she was ready for work.
"Going ahead at a full speed on my bicycle while watching so many cars jammed on the Western-Ring Road and Tiyuchang Road, I am thrilled and often just whistle for pleasure," says Li.
Even better, she didn't have to buy the bicycle herself. The stylish red-orange bike comes free from a public bicycle service company funded by the local government. It's free if she rides for less than one hour. She drops it off near her office when she arrives.
On May 1 last year, the Hangzhou municipal government began the public bicycle service program, with 2,800 bikes at 61 service outlets across downtown. The number of bicycles and outlets have increased.
It's easy for Li to find a bicycle at the outlet near her residence. She swipes her Hangzhou citizen card at a Point of Sells machine at the outlet. She returns the bike at an outlet near work.
China used to be a kingdom of bicycles.
Today it has far fewer bicycles in cities as affluent urbanites are fond of buying and driving their cars to work. Cars are also symbols of wealth and status.
With a 1.3 billion population, China had about 650 million bicycles at the end of 2008 and 65 million motor vehicles, according to China Bicycle Association.
In some cities, bicycle lanes are simply abolished in many areas to make room for cars.
But over the past year, public bicycles have become the most convenient transport for many Hangzhou residents like Li. Tourists love them for short trips.
As the first of its kind in the country, the public bicycle leasing was introduced to Hangzhou a year ago to make bicycles a component of public transport mix.
Bicycles are a means to solve the "final-kilometer puzzle" (you get on or off public transport close to your destination but still have not yet completed the journey).
They help realize a "seamless connection of bicycle-based slow-speed traffic with Metro and bus-based public traffic facilities," says Huang Zhiyao, general manager of Hangzhou Public Transport Corp.
"Further, bicycles aid green transport and reduce environmental pollution," he says.
Under the plan, residents from 16 to 70 years old, may hire and return public bicycles with their Hangzhou public transport IC cards or Hangzhou citizen cards at all service outlets.
Tourists from outside Hangzhou can get service cards at service outlets with their identity cards and a 300-yuan (US$44) deposit.
Use of the public bikes is free in the first hour, long enough to ride around the West Lake. Users pay one yuan from the second hour to the third hour, two yuan from the third hour to the fourth hour, and three yuan from the fourth hour to the 24th hour.
Tourists from outside the city are the first group of people to benefit from the scheme, as bicycles provide a pleasant and convenient way to tour the lake and other areas.
"I have traveled to Hangzhou with my family several times and it was really a headache to find a parking place in scenic spots," says Shanghai traveler Liu Zhuo. "But renting a bicycle has no such problems. We can go wherever we want."
Cao Jing, a woman in her 20s from Beijing, who has been to Paris and Prague, says, "I love Hangzhou, it felt like meeting an old friend on my first visit. It has the quiet and elegance of European cities. Riding a bicycle along willow-lined lakes lets me enjoy the charms of the city."
She says the West Lake area has excellent roads and reserved bicycle lanes without obstructions.
In China's bustling metropolises, rush hours are nightmares for office workers each morning and evening. East China's Hangzhou, known for its charming scenic spot West Lake, is no exception.
Every day, about 460,000 motor vehicles, including 360,000 private cars, are running in an endless stream along downtown streets of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province.
About 50,000 vehicles are added each year to the worsening traffic jams. The average driving time from residential areas in the western part of the city to downtown offices, has doubled from about 15 minutes two years ago to 30 minutes today.
During rush hours, it takes around 10 minutes to crawl over the 100-meter-long bridge approach to access overpass lanes leading to downtown areas.
Li Meng, a section manager of a foreign-funded company in downtown Hangzhou, could no longer tolerate the jams, and bid adieu to her favorite red roadster early this year, after stinging criticism from her boss for being late.
At 7:30 one morning in January, Li drove her roadster from her home in the Cuiyuan Residential Quarter in western Hangzhou and joined the stream of cars heading downtown. In half an hour, Li finally hit the Zhonghe Overpass Road that runs from the north to the south of Hangzhou.
To her bewilderment, the vehicle flow remained locked solid for 10 minutes. She looked at her watch, and there were only 15 minutes left for her to chair a meeting in the office. Li fidgeted and was vexed that she couldn't leave her car and run to her office.
She was late again and the boss was angry. Li, in her 30s, tried another way of getting to work - a bicycle. It was just an experiment at first, but she came to love bicycling and has been doing it for months.
The ride for half an hour in the fresh air along West Lake refreshed Li and she found she was ready for work.
"Going ahead at a full speed on my bicycle while watching so many cars jammed on the Western-Ring Road and Tiyuchang Road, I am thrilled and often just whistle for pleasure," says Li.
Even better, she didn't have to buy the bicycle herself. The stylish red-orange bike comes free from a public bicycle service company funded by the local government. It's free if she rides for less than one hour. She drops it off near her office when she arrives.
On May 1 last year, the Hangzhou municipal government began the public bicycle service program, with 2,800 bikes at 61 service outlets across downtown. The number of bicycles and outlets have increased.
It's easy for Li to find a bicycle at the outlet near her residence. She swipes her Hangzhou citizen card at a Point of Sells machine at the outlet. She returns the bike at an outlet near work.
China used to be a kingdom of bicycles.
Today it has far fewer bicycles in cities as affluent urbanites are fond of buying and driving their cars to work. Cars are also symbols of wealth and status.
With a 1.3 billion population, China had about 650 million bicycles at the end of 2008 and 65 million motor vehicles, according to China Bicycle Association.
In some cities, bicycle lanes are simply abolished in many areas to make room for cars.
But over the past year, public bicycles have become the most convenient transport for many Hangzhou residents like Li. Tourists love them for short trips.
As the first of its kind in the country, the public bicycle leasing was introduced to Hangzhou a year ago to make bicycles a component of public transport mix.
Bicycles are a means to solve the "final-kilometer puzzle" (you get on or off public transport close to your destination but still have not yet completed the journey).
They help realize a "seamless connection of bicycle-based slow-speed traffic with Metro and bus-based public traffic facilities," says Huang Zhiyao, general manager of Hangzhou Public Transport Corp.
"Further, bicycles aid green transport and reduce environmental pollution," he says.
Under the plan, residents from 16 to 70 years old, may hire and return public bicycles with their Hangzhou public transport IC cards or Hangzhou citizen cards at all service outlets.
Tourists from outside Hangzhou can get service cards at service outlets with their identity cards and a 300-yuan (US$44) deposit.
Use of the public bikes is free in the first hour, long enough to ride around the West Lake. Users pay one yuan from the second hour to the third hour, two yuan from the third hour to the fourth hour, and three yuan from the fourth hour to the 24th hour.
Tourists from outside the city are the first group of people to benefit from the scheme, as bicycles provide a pleasant and convenient way to tour the lake and other areas.
"I have traveled to Hangzhou with my family several times and it was really a headache to find a parking place in scenic spots," says Shanghai traveler Liu Zhuo. "But renting a bicycle has no such problems. We can go wherever we want."
Cao Jing, a woman in her 20s from Beijing, who has been to Paris and Prague, says, "I love Hangzhou, it felt like meeting an old friend on my first visit. It has the quiet and elegance of European cities. Riding a bicycle along willow-lined lakes lets me enjoy the charms of the city."
She says the West Lake area has excellent roads and reserved bicycle lanes without obstructions.
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