By Amr Galal
CAIRO, Nov. 23 (SEE) - Beijing, one of the most overcrowded and polluted cities in the world with a population of 21.71 million people. It has more than five million cars.
Surely this massive number of cars produces high percents of noise and air pollution, a matter which led Chinese authorities to take firm measures and solutions towards such a destructive phenomenon.
The numbers in Beijing are similar to Cairo, as the greater Cairo has about four million vehicles.
SEE toured the city with Xiang Zhenbiao – a Chinese citizen - to get posted on how these measures are being implemented in reality.
Zhenbiao told SEE that for seven years, the Chinese government tried to intervene through organizing the vehicles’ movement in the streets alternately according to their license plates. The authorities gave the green light to cars holding odd numbers on their plates to move on specific days and for cars which have even number on their plates. Anyone who violates the law would pay big fines.
This weird law encouraged Chinese families to have more than one car; one by odd-numbered license plates and another one by even-numbered plates.
The government had to deal with this situation with a new system. Actually, it imposed lottery systems in buying new license plates for the new cars. Any Chinese citizen who wants to buy a new car has to wait for a new lottery that has been held every two months to get a new license plate.
The authorities in Beijing offers 100,000 plates every year as a quota; 60% of them go in favor for electric cars while the remaining 40% goes for the gasoline vehicles.
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When Zhenbiao was asked about the effect of issuing that new system, he said that the lottery system surely didn’t completely solve the problem but it contributed to. In addition to these measures, the Chinese government gave privileges to people who leave their cars by offering discounts on using public transportation there and encouraged them to ride bikes.
“The Chinese government expects that the total number of vehicles in Beijing to reach 6.3 million vehicles by the end of 2020,” he added.
He pointed out that Chinese experts believed that reducing the number of vehicles in the streets is the best solution to resolve the problem of congestion, adding that it will help in declining the percentages of air and noise pollution as well as not turning the Chinese capital into a large garage.
Cairo authorities can borrow a leaf from Beijing even if they don't solve the problem. It is better than turning the capital into a big garage.
Translator: Hassan El-Khawaga
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