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Planners need to find clean, safe solution to problems caused by mass car ownership
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LAST Thursday I saw two pictures in a WeChat group used by parents in my son’s class.
I’ve been so haunted by these images that I feel compelled to say something about them.
The first picture showed a small girl in a school uniform lying prostrate on the road.
Toward her head was a blue school bag, and two medical professionals.
Towards her feet is a policeman taking pictures of the scene with his mobile phone. There is also a crowd of bystanders. Further away, cars can been seen parked on both sides of the road.
The second picture offered a close-up view of the girl’s bloodied, bandaged head.
A distraught woman sat by the girl on the road, her phone pressed to her ear.
These were scenes from a fatal traffic accident that happened on May 16, at about 4:30 pm. The girl, a second-grader, had just been picked up from a nearby school by her ayi. The ayi and the girl were riding on a motorbike when they were struck by bus No. 785 on Yushan Road (near Minsheng Road). The child, who was on the back of the bike, was pronounced dead on the spot.
My son used to take this bus from school, and he used to get off at the Yushan Road-Minsheng Road stop.
According to witness accounts, at the time of the collision, the otherwise quite wide Yushan Road had been significantly narrowed by long lines of private cars parked on both sides of the street, forcing the ayi to ride in the motor-vehicle lane.
The bus driver will probably escape punishment, and it would be ridiculous to point fingers at owners of the many cars parked along the road, even though the tragedy occurred in the midst of a sweeping traffic rectification campaign.
Tragedies of this sort occur hundreds of times each day on the roads of China. They are each, in their own way, sad testaments to the rapid motorization of our society, where cars have become status symbols and passenger vehicle sales figures are signs of prosperity.
While local authorities are doing much to expand public transport, such efforts have been undermined by their failure to discourage private car ownership and use. As a result, creating more and more parking space is today part of the government’s mandate to serve the people.
I do not know if local authorities have put forward any justifications for the widespread practice of turning roads into parking lots.
Many cities in the world have gained valuable experience from building sustainable and green transport systems, and it is painful to reflect on how the lessons of such experiences have eluded our urban planners.
Generally our officials take great pride in learning from advanced international practice.
Public transport
As far as green transport is concerned, we have willingly given up the honor of being exemplary in this regard.
If you look at photos from any big Chinese city 30 years ago, you would find the roads dominated by pedestrians, bikes and buses. Motor vehicles would be a rarity.
People have since abandoned bikes and buses in favor of cars and motorcycles.
Take my son as an example. If he goes to school by bike, it would take him about 20 minutes each way. But when I mentioned this to him this week, he protested vehemently, as none of his classmates cycles to school.
In a city where cars rule, it is increasingly difficult to get around by bike, while buses are becoming increasingly undependable.
In a recent reporting package exploring urban traffic policies, Wenhui Daily tapped the experiences of Singapore, Paris and Tokyo to conclude that public transport represents the solution to Shanghai’s traffic problems.
We will continue to pay a heavy price if we fail to provide the right incentives to develop our future urban mobility.
To be part of the solution now, students should be encouraged to go to school on foot or by bike whenever possible.
To make this possible, pedestrians and cyclists must be accorded better protection against motorized vehicles, which should be subject to calming measures and other restrictions that make our roads less intimidating.
When riding and walking are not viable options, buses and subways should efficiently fill transportation gaps.
By contrast, as a way to get people out of private cars, driving should become inefficient, expensive and unpleasant. Driveway access and parking spaces should be strictly limited and heavy punishments should be meted out to drivers who violate the rules.
The unfortunate truth is that, over the past two decades, bikes have been swept out of major downtown streets as we proudly ushered in the age of the private automobile.
In many aspects, we are blindly following the example of the US, where most people drive. But the US has more road space per capita than China.
It is not too late for us to change course, for private car ownership in China is still low compared with Western rates. We are still capable of doing something before things get much worse.
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