The Beijing authorities are fighting congested roads and air pollution with old technology by adding more bicycles to the roads.
The government aims to increase the proportion of cyclists on road from the current 19.7 percent to 23 percent by 2015 for a clearer sky and less traffic jams.
According to the director of the Municipal Communications Commission, the government will revise and eliminate regulations that discourage bicycle usage, and install more restrictions against car drivers.
The proportion of Beijing residents riding bicycles was only 19.7 percent in the first four months in 2009, compared with more than 80 percent in the 1980s.
The city will restore bicycle lanes which were cut to make more room for cars and buses. It will also work to relieve a shortage of secure bicycle parking, Liu said.
The government will build more parking lots for bikes alongside bus and subway stations so that cyclists could easily transfer to other transport vehicles.
Meanwhile, the city is making bikes more available for hire. By 2015, about 1,000 outlets will be offering 50,000 bikes for rent.
China was called “kingdom of bicycles” with a large army of bicycles, once totaling some 500 million, on the streets. But the number of bikes has plummeted as rapidly as private car ownership has expanded over the past decade.
Personally, I welcome this idea but I’m afraid that more bikes on the road does not necessarily mean less car on the road and the result might be more traffic jams and chaos because everything is on the road.