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Kingdom of bicycles on a highway to hell?

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The New York Times magazine had a very scary article this weekend on the rise of car culture in China.

Here are just a couple of interesting bits of information:

Number of passenger cars on the road: about 6 million in 2000 and about 20 million today. Car sales are up 54 percent in the first three months of 2006, compared with the same period a year ago; every day, 1,000 new cars (and 500 used ones) are sold in Beijing.

And, along with more cars comes more pollution;

….Beijing’s sulfur-dioxide levels in 2004 were more than double New York’s, and airborne-particulate levels more than six times as high…

Apparently, bicycles have even been banned from some main streets in Shanghai to try to ease traffic and cut down on accidents. It has been estimated that there is one bicycle for every two people in China.

One of China’s Vice-Ministers of Construction, Qiu Baoxing, has criticized city authorities for making it harder for cyclists to get around, saying the country should retain its title as the “kingdom of bicycles”.

Transportation is now the single biggest source of atmospheric pollution. While there has been some general movement in the manufacturing sector to use energy more efficient in the last 30 years, the transportation sector has moved in the opposite direction.

North Americans have been driving bigger, less fuel efficient vehicles, and freight companies have been shipping a greater proportion of goods by truck instead of by train.

The City of Toronto’s smog plan doesn’t mention cycling once. It does suggest walking and taking public transportation.

Photograph by Tony Law for the New York Times

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4 comments

  1. ‘The City of Toronto’s smog plan doesn’t mention cycling once’ hate to be all negative but ‘toronto’ and ‘plan’ in the same sentence always get a chuckle from me.

  2. What do you mean? I’m sure they plan to initiate a study on plan to analyse the feasibility on a plan to include cycling in the smog plan, o ye of little faith.

  3. Get this – when I contacted Toronto Public Health to ask why there isn’t any cycling promotion tied in with the, ah hem, plan…. they said ” I am forwarding you inquiry to our City Planning division that is responsible for the City’s cycling programs…”

  4. I’ve now spoken to someone at Public Health. They say they can’t actually promote cycling on smog days because…it’s bad for cyclists health due to the high level of pollution! If you do cycle on smog days, PH suggests staying of the main roads. Hey, here’s an idea: Why not build completely off-road hydro and rail corridor bike paths in and around the city? Ya can’t get much further from the mains than that…
    Here’s the only concrete evidence I see of the City promoting cycling via their Public Health anti-smog campaign(s): http://www.toronto.ca/health/2020/ontheroad_walk_bike.htm