Tackling the snarls of food delivery, rental bikes
Print Edition
IT’S not only cars that cause headaches for Jing’an traffic authorities. Popular services like food deliveries and shared bikes also pose problems on district streets.
Food delivery services are booming in Shanghai, fueled by white-collar office workers too busy to go out for lunch. But the convenience comes at a cost, with delivery scooters causing parking snarls and sometimes flouting traffic rules.
Jing’an recently addressed the problem by providing a special lane for deliverymen to park their motorbikes on one side of the Jing’an Kerry Center. It is the first zone of its kind to be implemented in Shanghai.
The parking space spans about 10 meters on the wide pavement along Changshu Road. It is separated from the pedestrian walkway by a traffic strip.
Every rider is allowed to park a bike for up to 10 minutes, which is enough for a quick delivery. The Kerry Center has teams of men monitoring the parking zone 24 hours a day.
Previously, the Kerry Center had allocated underground parking space for deliverymen, but that lengthened delivery times, which didn’t please food carriers who are under the gun to make fast deliveries and are paid according to how many deliveries they complete.
“I used to just park my bike street-side,” said a deliveryman surnamed Wang. “I knew it violated traffic rules and I was at risk of losing bike and my job. But it took too much time to go down to the underground area and then ride out again.”
Wang said the new parking zone is a blessing.
“It’s nice to know that the government considered our needs,” he said. “Now I can make fast deliveries without worrying about tangling with traffic police.”
The commercial street of Nanjing Road W. hosts more than 30 big office blocks that employ nearly 100,000 white-collar workers. Peak hours for food deliveries are between 11am and 2pm.
On another vehicular front, the district is trying to tackle problems arising from the shared-bike craze.
“We support bike-rental services,” said Zhang Tuo, deputy director of the district’s development and management authority. “But we have problems like bikes cluttering up pedestrian walkways and parking in lanes used by private bike riders.”
According to Zhang, the number of rental bikes far exceeds space to park them.
In the Tianmu Road W. community, for example, there are an estimated 10,000-20,000 non-motor vehicles, but the community has designated parking for only 8,000 of the vehicles.
Jing’an is working to create more bike parking.
Since the latter half of 2016, the district has added 124 parking venues to accommodate an extra 7,196 non-motor vehicles, and Shanghai Metro operator Shentong has set up some parking areas within 50 meters of stations.
Authorities said they have had discussions with major industry players like Mobike and Ofo about bringing more order to bike-rental services.
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