Before October, Chen Gang used to struggle to wake up at 6:30 am every day, rush through his morning chores before running to the parking lot to drive his mid-sized Buick to his downtown Beijing office.
A train on Metro Line 5 moves through Beijing's Tiantongyuan residential area, the largest in the capital with 300,000 people. The 27.6-km line was opened in October and carries one-third of the city's metro commuters. [Agencies] |
He did all that to avoid the morning traffic snarls during his drive from Tiantongyuan residential community in northern Beijing.
Now he is a relaxed man, for he can afford to sleep a bit longer, have a proper breakfast and then take a healthy 20-minute walk to Metro Line 5 that cuts across Beijing from north to south.
"It's a totally different experience," says Chen, who lives in Beijing's largest residential community of 300,000 people. "Despite the extra time I spend at home and for the walk, I can still sit at my office desk before 9 am." His office is in Xidan, just one km from Tian'anmen Square.
Driving to work used to be the biggest problem for Chen because it could take him up to two hours to reach office, although the distance can easily be covered in one-fourth of the time.
"I've given up driving during weekdays. Instead, I have picked the habit of reading books during my daily rides on the metro," Chen says. "I save money and time, and gain some knowledge, too."
The Metro Line 5 is part of Beijing's efforts to expand and improve the urban transport infrastructure because more and more people are likely to use public transport as traffic chokes the city's roads.
Advisors to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games see Chen's changed lifestyle as part of the sports gala's legacy.
"People like Chen have not only made the morning commute easier and helped ease traffic jams, but also reduced emissions from running engines of stationary cars," says Sarah Liao Sau Tung, Environment Advisor to the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).
About 200,000 car owners have already stopped driving to work, according to official statistics. The Beijing municipal committee of communications says public transit accounts for 30.2 percent of the total traffic flow.
But look at other major cities of the world: London -- 40 percent, Paris - 70 percent, New York - 76 percent, Tokyo - 91 percent, and Hong Kong - a mind-boggling 95 percent.
Wangfujing: One of the places in Beijing where bicycles can be hired by residents and tourists alike. The city is going to increase the number of such bicycles from 5,000 to 50,000 by August 2008 to help ease traffic jams and reduce pollution. Tian Chi |
More public transport means more bigger vehicles and trains carrying more people, which in turn mean less pollution. So what else is Beijing doing to encourage residents and tourists to reduce pollution.
It has put up 5,000 bicycles in different parts of the city for hire.
The number will jump to 50,000 by August next year, says Beijing's environment protection bureau deputy director Du Shaozhong, after the network is expanded to major communities and all Olympic venues.
"All these measures and mechanisms are an important part of the Olympics legacy. We want people to try and ensure there are clear blue skies during the Olympics because the habit will stick - and that's the legacy," says Liao, who is part of a four-member team of environmental advisors to BOCOG.
Sport, culture and the environment are the three pillars of the Olympics movement, Liao says. The first two pillars have for long been standing in Beijing, and the third is on the road to completion.
To build the third pillar, the city has spent about 120 billion yuan ($16.23 billion) on environmental protection projects from 1998 to 2006, even though it had committed to only 100 billion yuan ($13.52 billion) while bidding for the Games.
In 2001, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the 2008 Games and the XIII Paralympic Games to Beijing, one of the criteria it used to judge the candidate cities was their commitment to staging an environmentally friendly Games.
Though Beijing's air quality is not as good as some developed cities' and it needs greater and long-term measures to keep improving the environment, Liao says the Olympics would have played a catalyst's role.
