Guangzhou recently set in place a private vehicle restriction scheme. Photo by by Abdul Rahman.

Our monthly China Transportation Briefing shares interesting news and noteworthy research related to China’s transportation and urban development. The goal is to help people who are interested in solving China’s urbanization and transportation problems understand relevant Chinese policies and trends. Each issue revolves around a particular theme, with content summarized from recent newsletters and magazines. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Research Assistant Heshuang Zeng at hzeng [at] wri [dot] org.

On June 30^th, Guangzhou’s municipal government announced it would implement a vehicle registration quota in order to address the city’s congestion problems and air pollution. As this forthcoming policy combines elements of Beijing’s and Shanghai’s vehicle restriction experiences and clean energy vehicle incentives, it could reduce gridlock and encourage the usage of new, energy efficient cars. Moreover, the synergy between this policy and the progress of public transit development in Guangzhou might bring positive change to the city’s urban mobility system.

Vehicle license restriction in Chinese cities

Guangzhou is not the first Chinese city to implement a vehicle license control policy. While developing countries usually face the choice between supporting the auto industry as a pillar of economic growth and curbing vehicle usage that inevitably leads to traffic congestion, several Chinese cities have taken action by starting to control car ownership growth. The most notable cases are vehicle plate auctions in Shanghai-which started as early as 1994- and the vehicle license lottery or Yaohao in Beijing. Shanghai’s vehicle registration restriction started as early as 1994. It is a monthly auction system granting car registration rights to the highest bidders – currently the price of a vehicle license plate is over US$9,000. Beijing’s vehicle quota, by contrast, was not in place until this past February when traffic congestion had already been long entrenched. The Yaohao lottery gives new car buyers the opportunity to win a car license at no charge, yet only about 2-percent of entrants are granted the right to drive in Beijing.

Guangzhou’s vehicle plate restriction arose in a similar context. Currently, there are 10 million people and 2.4 million vehicles in this most powerful economic center in Southern China. As the Mayor of Guangzhou pointed out in a recent interview, conducted in Mandarin, half of Guangzhou’s streets will be gridlocked if the vehicle license control is not in place by next year. From this standpoint, curbing the vehicle growth seems to be a must for Guangzhou.

Guangzhou Model = Beijing + Shanghai + Green Vehicle Incentives

On August 1^st, Guangzhou released detailed implementation rules after a 20-day public review of the licensing policy draft. According to the latest announcements made by municipal officials, Guangzhou  will take a hybrid approach to licensing policy combining Beijing’s lottery system, Shanghai’s license auctioning and by incorporating new green vehicle incentives. The yearly vehicle license plate quota stands at 120,000, or about the half of the increase in new vehicle registrations in Guangzhou for 2011. These plates are distributed as follows:

• 10% – 12,000 plates will be allocated to environmental friendly vehicles by free lottery –“environmental friendly”  refers to vehicles included in an official state catalog of sustainable vehicles “Recommended vehicle Directory for energy-saving and new energy vehicle demonstration project” –or vehicles characterized as small and medium-sized passenger cars with fuel saving ratio higher than 20%.
• 50% – 60,000 plates will be distributed by a lottery mimicking Beijing’s, however, only vehicles with an engine displacement of less than 2.5 liters are qualified to obtain licenses through the lottery.
• 40% – 48,000 plates will be auctioned similar to Shanghai’s system – there is no set limit on the highest auction price.

Most would not deny vehicle registration control represents progress. Studies show that the vehicle plate restriction in Shanghai has reduced car ownership by at least 200-percent. In addition, this policy aligns with China’s ambitious plans for clean energy vehicles. The national target for cumulative production and sales of pure electric and plug-in vehicles is 500,000 units by 2015. Guangzhou’s vehicle restriction system fits neatly with its status as a “new clean vehicle” city, a nationwide initiative for new and clean energy vehicle promotion.

However, as previously noted on TheCityFix, the “cleanness” of the so-called “clean and new energy vehicles” depends on the energy source of the electricity provided; the majority of China’s energy is provided by coal.  The incentive for “clean and new energy vehicles” will help Guangzhou put cleaner vehicles on the road; however, it may not reduce net carbon output.

Will this policy solve Guangzhou’s traffic problem?

Not by itself, but through the synergy with other public transit projects it may reduce congestion. As Professor Yang Xiaoguang, dean of traffic engineering at Tongji University pointed out, “introducing new policies and auctioning license plates will not solve urban traffic troubles in the long run. The only solution is to develop high-quality public transport.” As vehicle license control policies make private vehicle ownership more costly, and improved public transit gives people alternative mobility options, together they would create a comprehensive sustainable transportation network and bring positive change to urban mobility patterns.

Over the past few years, Guangzhou has attracted a lot of attention through its transit projects such as BRT,  its greenway bike system and public bike rental program. The city currently operates one of the busiest BRT corridors in the world, with over 800,000 passenger-trips every day.The BRT system is well-integrated with a feeder public bike rental program and a series of greenway bike lanes, which  links attractions and public transit nodes, and provides a safe and comfortable space for people to bike and walk along. Expansion of the greenway is still undergoing; with a 200-kilometer increase this year, the total length will reach 2062-kilometers.  Meanwhile, Guangzhou also has an active grassroots NGO, Bike Guangzhou. Bike Guangzhou was started by a group of young people in 2010 and this organization has worked very closely with the local government to create a more bikeable environment. This kind of grassroots cycling NGO is rarely found in other Chinese cities.

New vehicle control policy would make owning a car more expensive in Guangzhou, but public transit and non-motorized transport infrastructure will help improve the viability and attractiveness of these alternatives to private car ownership.  All of these policies and projects working in unison will result in a more comprehensive and sustainable transportation network for the people of Guangzhou.

Guangzhou BRT

Photo by Benjamin.

Guangzhou’s new BRT system launched in February, becoming “a system of firsts:” the first BRT to directly connect to a metro system, the first BRT system in China to include bike parking in its station design, the world’s highest number of passenger boardings at BRT stations, highest BRT bus frequency, and longest BRT stations. The system includes 980 buses stopping at 26 stations along 23 kilometers of dedicated bus lanes. Current ridership is about 800,000 daily passengers—more than triple the number of passengers of any other BRT line in Asia. It is a strong contender for this year’s Sustainable Transport Awards. Check out more photos here.

Tehran BRT

Photo by Iroony.

Tehran, Iran expanded its metro system and its BRT system, making it one of this year’s nominees for the Sustainable Transport Awards. Today, the Tehran Metro boasts ridership of about 4 million people. And while the BRT lanes expand, city officials race to fulfill a program to have total public transit miles exceed 400 kilometers by 2020.

Transmetro

Photo via transmetro.gov.co

The Colombian city of Barranquilla opened the Transmetro bus system in April. Following the mega success of TransMilenio in Bogotá (which celebrates its 10-year anniversary this month), Transmetro includes key features of a successful BRT system, such as exclusive lanes, at-level boarding from stations and feeder buses. The system has improved mobility in Colombia’s fourth largest city and moves more than 200,000 riders per day. Elsewhere in the country, the city of Bucaramanga also opened its Metrolinea BRT system plus feeder services.

Capital Bikeshare

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

To increase use of 50 miles of bike lanes in Washington, D.C.,  the District Department of Transportation began operations of Capital Bikeshare, the largest regional bike sharing system in the United States with 1,100 bikes at more than 100 stations in the District and Arlington. Ridership on CaBi, even in the winter months, continues to grow and there are plans to add 20 stations and 200 more bikes in the next year. The sleek new system succeeds the capital’s pilot Smartbike program, which will cease operations as of January 3.

Ecobici

Photo by MikeD.

In February, Mexico City released 1,000 bikes at 85 stations for public use downtown. Within seven months, the system already had more than 10,000 members and went ahead with expansion plans in the historic district of the city.  Pending continued growth in ridership, Ecobici may expand to other areas of the city, with an eventual estimated total of 6,000 bikes.

Barclays Cyclehire

Photo by EG Focus.

With the massive success of bike sharing systems in other parts of Europe and the world, London took the big dive and launched its own system of 5,000 bicycles and 315 docking stations. Public reception has been so positive that a portion of the system crashed due to high demand when it was officially made “public”  by opening up to non-members. With more than a million rides in the first 10 weeks of operation, London announced that Barclays Cyclehire will expand with an additional 2,000 bikes and 4,200 docking points.

Dubai Metro

Photo by Nepenthes.

The Dubai Metro opened in late 2009 and now carries 140,000 passengers per day, though officials expect ridership to increase to 170,000 daily passengers by the end of this year. This is good news for the Roads and Transport Authority, which aims to have 30 percent of the population using public transportation by 2020. When the Green Line is completed next summer, the Dubai Metro will claim to be the longest fully automated metro network in the world, taking the title away from the Vancouver Skytrain.

Dallas Green Line

Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) opened its electric light rail Green Line just a few weeks ago. The $1.8 billion line, with 15 new stations, runs from from southeastern Dallas to Carrollton, ushering in “a new era” for notoriously car-centric Texas, according to The Dallas Morning News. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood applauded the system for being delivered ahead of schedule and on budget. He also pointed out that the Green Line’s launch was the longest single-day opening of electric light rail in the United States since 1990.

El Metropolitano

Photo by Jim McIntosh.

After four years of construction, Lima’s BRT system El Metropolitano began operations in July with 38 stations along an initial 33-kilometer route. The system includes exclusive lanes, elevated stations, and smart traffic light technology to serve the Peruvian capital of nearly eight million.

Optibus

Photo by CTS-México.

Leon, Mexico, a city of 1.3 million people, launched the second phase of its Integrated Transport System (ITS) in August. The system’s operations were optimized with 10 new stations and 5 additional kilometers of bus-only lanes, plus 29 new high-quality articulated buses. Now, 69 out of 100 public bus routes are physically integrated with the city’s Optibus BRT system, representing about 70% of the city’s public transport trips. As a result of its continued progress and commitment to sustainable transport, the city has been nominated for the Sustainable Transport Awards.

Gautrain

Photo by Henti Smith.

Africa’s first high-speed rail line, Gautrain, launched in June, three days before the World Cup, linking Pretoria to Johannesburg in South Africa. The train network will cover 80 kilometers once completed and will include two main lines: a north-south line from Hatfield to Marlboro and an east-west line from Park Station to Johannesburg International Airport. City officials got creative with their outreach efforts, hosting a “tweetup” test ride to invite new passengers on board.

Other notable additions or expansions:

• The Delhi Metro expanded from 63 kilometers to 156 kilometers, in time for the Commonwealth Games.
• Denver, Colo. launched B-cycle, the nation’s first large-scale citywide bikesharing system, which was recently demonstrated in San Francisco to support the recent funding of a Regional Bicycle Sharing Pilot Program.
• Jaipur, India re-organized its bus system to increase ridership, reduce travel delays, and improve overall operations.
• Nantes, France extended its bike network and won the title of European Green Capital 2013
• Vancouver, Canada installed a temporary streetcar for the Winter Olympics as a demonstration project and to build support for future downtown transit investment.
• Shanghai Metro expanded, now capable of handling about five million passengers a day and becoming the longest metro system in the world.
• The historic Angel’s Flight funicular railway in downtown Los Angeles reopened this year after being closed for a decade.
• The New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) unveiled its first second bus line with elements of bus rapid transit (BRT). The express bus, the Bx12 line, runs east to west across the Bronx with limited stops. The express bus, the M15 Select Bus Service, runs north to south across Manhattan with limited stops.
• China opened the world’s fastest rail line, at 350 kilometers per hour, between Wuhan and Guangzhou.

Erik Weber and Dario Hidalgo contributed to this post.

Jaiding City Center Park. Rendering by Sasaki.

Live blogging from the American Society of Landscape Architects 2010 Expo and Design Conference in Washington, D.C., held at the Convention Center on September 10-12.

“Shanghai is sinking.”

That’s what landscape architect Xiaowei Ma, president and founder of Ager Design said during yesterday’s education session, “Regenerative Landscapes in China: Ecological stewardship in an Urbanizing Society.” Ma is working on a project in Jiading District, a satellite town outside of Shanghai, along with landscape architects Michael Grove and Mark Reaves from the firm, Sasaki Associates Inc. Their Central Park-esque design integrates, water, trails and wildlife into a new development in within the District.

The community is along the now thoroughly degraded Yangtze River that has become a series of man-made canals and irrigation areas. Over the years, a huge wetland became urban sprawl. And now the satellite town of Jiading has grown out of industrial development in the 1980s. For Ma, Jiading Park is the most important suburb of Shanghai.  Agriculture arrives right at its edge. Tiny parcels of greenspace dot Jiading, but there’s no high quality greenspace.

A Place of Firsts

Jiading was the first town outside of Shanghai that became connected to the megacity via highway.  In the 1990s, as slums in Shanghai were cleared and more residents relocated, a number of people ended up in Jiading, which today has around 1.3 million people. According to Ma, 1 million people moved to Shanghai’s suburbs from 1990 to 2000 and another half million during this decade. For more images of Jiading and a history of its development, check out this post from movingcities.org.

Today the government is planning a massive and far more organized development in the District.  Much of the plan involves bringing ecology back to a place where it has been relegated to little importance.  The planners of the design say their role is deeper than simply acting as architects designing a park; they are educating and informing policy makers by creating landscapes that shape a community and express its culture, bringing biodiversity back to a polluted landscape. Plus, the fact that they have been hired by the Chinese government to do this kind of work is a huge step. A Chinese policy in place since 2007 evaluates mayors not simply by level of economic growth but also includes environmental and energy targets in this evaluation system. The architects say more and more green design is influencing China’s development.

Another rendering of Jiading Park by Sasaki.

Located in what will be a densely residential area, the government’s original design for Jiading Park cut up the landscape with roads and involved a small ring of greenery around the community. The architects worked to reduce crossroads by a third and even tunneled a few underneath the park.  The presenters described the linear park as having a sense of movement given its two major pathways that weave across the length of the park. This promotional video shows an interactive design of the park:

The site is currently under construction and the architects involved say they are optimistic about sustainable growth in China. They acknowledge that many Chinese planners still look to the U.S. model of development: sprawl, cars and free standing homes. (See our previous post about China’s need for an “urban awakening” to reverse this trend.)

The hope is that accommodating nature into future urban designs will provide broader benefits and improvements in quality of life, especially for dwellers on the outskirts of mega-cities like Shanghai.

The China Pavilion at the 2010 World Expo: What does it say about the future of Chinese cities? Photo by lee_blake_somerset.

Cities in China are “becoming ever less habitable,” and their future will depend on an “urban awakening” that includes the Chinese government’s support of public participation in urban planning and decision-making, says Zhang Song, a professor at Tongji University’s College of Architecture and Urban Planning, in a two-part interview on chinadialogue.

China is a country of superlatives. It has the world’s fastest train. It uses the most energy. It even has the world’s highest cocktail bar. It’s no wonder, then, that Chinese cities are now feeling the burden of having to deal with astronomical rates of sprawl, motorization and population growth.

ALL SHOW, NO SUBSTANCE?

The “Better City, Better Life” theme of the 2010 World Expo (another superlative: the biggest world’s fair) seems to signal an urban sustainability future for China. Indeed, many of the pavilions on display (here are some pictures of the coolest ones) use modern and environmentally conscious design elements, like energy-efficient heating and cooling systems, recycled building materials, and a “green wall” (another world’s largest.)

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released a report last August to assess Shanghai’s efforts in nine key areas: air quality, transport, energy, solid waste, water, green coverage, protected areas, climate neutrality and the overall situation of the Expo Site. UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said: “The Shanghai Expo…is offering us a glimpse of a greener future.”

But only a glimpse. The UNEP report applauds many of the city’s efforts, but also outlines several key areas for improvement. This includes developing renewable energy sectors to move away from coal-powered electricity, promoting public transportation, reducing waste, cleaning up rivers, and encouraging public participation from NGOs and “green citizenship.”

Some critics have flat-out accused the Expo for being “insultingly hypocritical,” for being organized more like a utopian theme park than a true testament to sustainability. There are 192 countries and 50 organizations involved in the massive construction of pavilions, many of which won’t have any lasting benefit to the city.

Richard Brubaker, an expert on environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility, was quoted by NPR as saying, “the Expo, by its nature, is the very opposite of sustainable development,” and in a separate email to TheCityFix, he adds an important caveat: “If you are ONLY focused on the buildings.  There are a number of very sustainable elements that exist, and this Expo will be the only site where up to 600,000 people will be sustained for 6 months in a sustainably designed site.” (Read more about why Brubaker thinks “this Expo should be given some green credits” on his blog, Cleaner Greener China.)

Nonetheless, the Expo does reveal China’s market-led mentality of rebuilding, rather than restoring or preserving, for the sake of maximum profit, as Zhang points out in his chinadialogue interview. “The Expo has many showy buildings,” he says, “but it doesn’t seem like any of them will become classics.”

Part of problem, Zhang says, is that many of the old factory spaces that used to be on the Expo site was demolished. “If that had been made full use of, perhaps things would have been simpler, or have better embodied environmental principles.”

TOWARDS AN URBAN AWAKENING

To fight its “urban disease,” China needs to focus more on human society, Zhang says. He outlines several recommendations, paraphrased below:

Preserve, don’t destroy: “Protecting and changing the use of old buildings is better for the environment and saves resources and energy – and also touches on hidden issues such as social structure.”

Be narrow-minded, at least when it comes to roads: “The marker of liveability for a city is its human scale…In Shanghai’s [major financial district], the roads are too big, the huge buildings leave people feeling alienated, the space is badly organised and living and travelling are extremely inconvenient.”

Think green: “You need to remember that greenery and landscaping aren’t just to look nice, they actually improve the ecological environment.”

Don’t be a copycat: “There is a misconception that bigger cities are better cities. But it isn’t a question of size, it’s a question of comfort, efficiency, environmental quality, liveability and, in particular, suitability for different types of people to flourish. The government needs to recognise the nature of cities, rather than treat them as a source of prestige or as a copy of other urban centres like New York.”

Involve the public: “Urban planning is a social activity that citizens can get involved in….The future of the Chinese city depends on the citizens waking up, not just a few officials.“

A few highlights from our TheCityFix DC site-if you’re not reading it regularly, you’re missing out:

LEED Neighborhood Development Wants You to Build More More More: Why doesn’t LEED-ND certify already existing neighborhoods? It’s one more example of green consumerism, or, as I like to call it, eco-narcissism.

Uncovering The Militarized City: D.C. is the strongest example of a national trend. Urban space is increasingly being reshaped to serve the ends of security: guards, gates, guns, cameras, cops, and so on.

Fares and Fairness: A long look at the economic and philosophic justifications for how high subway fares actually ought to be.

Symbols Matter: Fairfax City or Fairfax County: An urbanizing county outside D.C. is considering becoming a city. I argue that looking at just the policy outcomes-transportation and taxes-misses the much more important symbolic weight of choosing to call yourself a city.

World’s Fair 2010: “Better Cities, Better Lives”: The Shanghai 2010 World Exposition is on the theme “Better Cities, Better Lives.” A brief history of the importance of World’s Fairs in urban design.

Urban Renewal By Any Other Name: Why the vogue for “shrinking cities” is just the same old argument for urban renewal. And we know how that ends.

Gender and the Art of Bicycle Maintenance: Why are there three times more male bikers in New York than female bikers and what can we do about it?

If you’ve made it this far down, really, just bookmark dc.thecityfix.com or add it to your RSS reader.

Haibao, the mascot for Expo 2010.

Via NAC, I see that Shanghai, which is hosting the 2010 World Expo, has declared its theme to be Better City, Better Life. The mostly unnavigable site even has a whole page outlining what this theme means, highlighting the economic power of cities and the cultural benefits of urban diversity.

It seems like the Expo planners haven’t quite decided, or at least communicated, what this theme will actually mean. But it’s something to keep your eyes on.

World’s Fairs, the predecessors of today’s World Expos, have an important history in urban planning. Americans are probably most familiar with the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which kicked off the City Beautiful movement in the States. But World’s Fairs have always had a major impact on our imagination of what the city is and should be. The 1900 World’s Fair is Paris is also largely associated with beginning a trend towards technological modernism in European Cities. The 1900 Exposition had the first moving walkway take visitors around the fairgrounds, coincided with the opening of the Paris Metro, and was centered around the Palace of Electricity (these last two links go to videos shot by Thomas Edison in 1900 – so cool!). The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair housed the Homes of Tomorrow exhibit, which helped kick off pre-fab houses and presaged the spread of suburbia across the United States. Maybe the strangest example is the 1942 World’s Fair, which would have been outside Rome, had World War II not broken out. The site, which was partially built, is perhaps the most important artifact showing what the fascist city would have looked like.

China is a rising power and one that understands the symbolism of these world spectacles better than any other nation. What they choose to design for the 2010 Expo will be a revealing look into the future of the Chinese city but also the world city moving into the 21^st century.