CAR, CAR, CAR!

For my regular readers (all three of you), you have often heard me  comment on the number of  cars that are clogging up what was once a pristine car free campus.

With this in mind, I thought perhaps a little background research was necessary to confirm my  observations here at HIT. A microcosm of what is happening in China.

Even our young neighbor has been bitten by the car bug.

When we first visited Beijing in 2003, our impression then was of bicycles, bicycles and more bicycles. In 2003, 36% of all commuting (under 3 kilometres) in Beijing was done by either bicycle or walking.  Statistics for that period indicated that there were more bicycles in Beijing than people.

 







In 2011, less then 6% of commuting was done by bicycles. 

Some of the reduction can be attributed to the excellent Beijing public transit system that has developed, especially since the 2008 Summer Olympics. China has put the mass into mass transit. As well, there were over 80,000 taxis on the road in 2011 as compared to 50,000 in 2003.




In 2003 there were just over  3,000,000 private cars registered in China. In 2011, over 80,000,000 private cars are now registered. I am prepared to swear that most of them are driving at high speeds around the HIT campus.

In 2010, it was estimated that China would surpass all other countries and become the world's largest auto market outselling even the caraholic Americans. Mission accomplished.










Over 17,000,000 private cars were purchased by the Chinese in 2010 with that number expected to exceed 18,000,000 in 2012

Only 3 of  every 100 people in China own a car, as compared to 80 of every 100 people in North America. It is this number that has Chinese and World car manufacturers salivating. So many people, so little time.






 But China's road to the automobile has not been without cost. 
 
 
China has the highest rate of road fatalities and accidents in the world. While they have only 3% of all cars in the world, they have 22% all recorded highway accidents. I emphasize recorded. The Chinese are absolutely anal about reporting every little scrape and scratch. And there are a lot of them, amazingly not on taxis given their high mileage.  



The rise in automobile ownership in America brought stagnation and slow death  to the downtown cores of many North American cities. Cars gave people the freedom to live further from work. Their exodus to the "burbs" gave birth to the "mall" with their giant parking lots. This led to the creation of "freeways" to move these people back to the downtown which resulted in the invention of  "traffic jams" or as I like to call them, "slow parking lots".




The same problems are happening in Chinese cities.



There is no more rush in Harbin's rush hour.







China has put the jam into traffic jam with a recent one in Northwest China lasting more than three days. 



HIT's solution to the campus problem was to institute pay parking and install speed bumps along  with speed limit signs which for the most part are ignored.  The car is king in China and pedestrians are just mobile speed bumps.

I think we need to consider returning to the good old days.