hkskyline
July 18th, 2005, 03:07 AM
Booming Guangzhou really in a jam
City's infrastructure cannot keep up with rapid development
Leu Siew Ying in Guangzhou
18 July 2005
South China Morning Post
At the Bank of Nova Scotia in the Guangdong International Hotel, staff regularly blame traffic jams when they are late for work.
Branch manager Judith Ki is forced to accept their excuses, for the evidence is all too plain to see - all she has to do is look out of her office window. On Huanshi East Road, 10 floors down, the traffic flows relentlessly.
"Initially, I thought they were acting up, especially those who live south of the river, but even one of my most reliable workers has been panting every morning as she hurries into the office," she said.
Ms Ki moved from Hong Kong to Guangzhou after the completion of the World Bank-financed inner ring road in 1999. Until recently, she enjoyed smooth, quick journeys on the city's roads, but no longer. Traffic has been slowly snarling up again because infrastructure construction is unable to keep pace with rapid annual growth of more than 12 per cent.
Measures such as banning motorcycles, implemented in May last year, offered a temporary respite. But the main artery of Huanshi Lu is becoming clogged up for longer and longer periods this year, while traffic on the inner ring road often slows to a crawl.
And Ms Ki is not even the best monitor of Guangzhou's worsening traffic situation since she lives several floors up from her office in the same building, and is spared the daily commute to work.
Fellow Hongkonger Shirley Yeung, who moved to Guangzhou before the elevated inner ring road was built, has seen the traffic situation go from very bad, to better and bad again in the past two years as the city aggressively promotes its fledgling car industry, putting 500 new vehicles on the road each day.
"Hong Kong is also congested but we have better traffic control. Whenever a traffic jam is reported, there is an immediate response from traffic police, but not here," said Ms Yeung, a senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The congestion has prompted a study by the Guangzhou People's Political Consultative Conference. Research team member Shi Jiang-ping said preliminary findings indicated that the answer was not to build more roads but to improve traffic control and raise awareness of road safety.
"The government has invested a lot in road building in recent years, spending an average of 10 billion yuan and as much as 20 billion yuan at its peak. I don't think it is the solution." Mr Shi said.
He cited problems such as unsynchronised traffic lights, bus drivers stopping in the middle of the road to pick up passengers, jay walkers and five vehicles squeezing into three-lane roads to try to escape traffic jams.
"Riding on a bus is like riding on a roller coaster. Bus drivers are so bold, they will squeeze into any space in front of them," he said.
The study group, set up at the end of last month in response to complaints from the public, will go to Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin before drafting a report to present to the conference in September.
"We had wanted to go to Hong Kong and Singapore to study the traffic situation there but we can't because of time constraints," Mr Shi said.
The slow-moving traffic might test the patience of Guangzhou drivers used to a speedier inner ring road, but the city has a long way to go before it can touch Beijing, where traffic jams can last as long as eight hours.
"In 1996, it took three hours to drive just 6km to Guangzhou's airport. Now that we have moved the airport out, it takes only half an hour to drive 30km to the airport," said Zheng Jing , director of a semi-official Guangzhou urban planning institute.
Investors' factories are located outside the city centre and they are moving their goods out to the relocated airport and port so they are spared the jam on Huanshi East Road and in Tianhe district, both of which are business centres.
Residents suffer now, but in five to 10 years they are expected to move out of the city centre, the institute's vice-director, Lai Shouhua, said.
Guangzhou is building subways at the rate of 2km a month and connecting existing roads to create an intermediate ring road between the inner and the outer rings. It will take years, however, before a more complete public transport system catches up with demand.
In the meantime, traffic is slowly grinding to a halt on Huanshi East Road - and things are going to get worse before they get better. A massive project to build a plaza linking the Garden Hotel and the Friendship Store across the street is expected to begin construction by the end of the year.
For the longer term, Mr Lai believes the city needs to draw up a comprehensive transport policy to support its development goals and meet people's aspirations to own cars.
City's infrastructure cannot keep up with rapid development
Leu Siew Ying in Guangzhou
18 July 2005
South China Morning Post
At the Bank of Nova Scotia in the Guangdong International Hotel, staff regularly blame traffic jams when they are late for work.
Branch manager Judith Ki is forced to accept their excuses, for the evidence is all too plain to see - all she has to do is look out of her office window. On Huanshi East Road, 10 floors down, the traffic flows relentlessly.
"Initially, I thought they were acting up, especially those who live south of the river, but even one of my most reliable workers has been panting every morning as she hurries into the office," she said.
Ms Ki moved from Hong Kong to Guangzhou after the completion of the World Bank-financed inner ring road in 1999. Until recently, she enjoyed smooth, quick journeys on the city's roads, but no longer. Traffic has been slowly snarling up again because infrastructure construction is unable to keep pace with rapid annual growth of more than 12 per cent.
Measures such as banning motorcycles, implemented in May last year, offered a temporary respite. But the main artery of Huanshi Lu is becoming clogged up for longer and longer periods this year, while traffic on the inner ring road often slows to a crawl.
And Ms Ki is not even the best monitor of Guangzhou's worsening traffic situation since she lives several floors up from her office in the same building, and is spared the daily commute to work.
Fellow Hongkonger Shirley Yeung, who moved to Guangzhou before the elevated inner ring road was built, has seen the traffic situation go from very bad, to better and bad again in the past two years as the city aggressively promotes its fledgling car industry, putting 500 new vehicles on the road each day.
"Hong Kong is also congested but we have better traffic control. Whenever a traffic jam is reported, there is an immediate response from traffic police, but not here," said Ms Yeung, a senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The congestion has prompted a study by the Guangzhou People's Political Consultative Conference. Research team member Shi Jiang-ping said preliminary findings indicated that the answer was not to build more roads but to improve traffic control and raise awareness of road safety.
"The government has invested a lot in road building in recent years, spending an average of 10 billion yuan and as much as 20 billion yuan at its peak. I don't think it is the solution." Mr Shi said.
He cited problems such as unsynchronised traffic lights, bus drivers stopping in the middle of the road to pick up passengers, jay walkers and five vehicles squeezing into three-lane roads to try to escape traffic jams.
"Riding on a bus is like riding on a roller coaster. Bus drivers are so bold, they will squeeze into any space in front of them," he said.
The study group, set up at the end of last month in response to complaints from the public, will go to Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin before drafting a report to present to the conference in September.
"We had wanted to go to Hong Kong and Singapore to study the traffic situation there but we can't because of time constraints," Mr Shi said.
The slow-moving traffic might test the patience of Guangzhou drivers used to a speedier inner ring road, but the city has a long way to go before it can touch Beijing, where traffic jams can last as long as eight hours.
"In 1996, it took three hours to drive just 6km to Guangzhou's airport. Now that we have moved the airport out, it takes only half an hour to drive 30km to the airport," said Zheng Jing , director of a semi-official Guangzhou urban planning institute.
Investors' factories are located outside the city centre and they are moving their goods out to the relocated airport and port so they are spared the jam on Huanshi East Road and in Tianhe district, both of which are business centres.
Residents suffer now, but in five to 10 years they are expected to move out of the city centre, the institute's vice-director, Lai Shouhua, said.
Guangzhou is building subways at the rate of 2km a month and connecting existing roads to create an intermediate ring road between the inner and the outer rings. It will take years, however, before a more complete public transport system catches up with demand.
In the meantime, traffic is slowly grinding to a halt on Huanshi East Road - and things are going to get worse before they get better. A massive project to build a plaza linking the Garden Hotel and the Friendship Store across the street is expected to begin construction by the end of the year.
For the longer term, Mr Lai believes the city needs to draw up a comprehensive transport policy to support its development goals and meet people's aspirations to own cars.