In anticipation of the impending Olympics, Beijing’s subway has undergone a series of major changes, documented in this series of photographs. With a total of five lines totaling 140 kilometers of track, Beijing plans to add three more lines this year to extend coverage to 200 km.
Photo by Alexandra Moss.
Once known as the world’s ‘bicycle kingdom,’ China has experienced rapid urbanization leading some to declare the beginning of the end for China’s bikes. While it’s true that from 1995 to 2005, China’s bike fleet declined by 35 percent and private car ownership more than doubled, there is no evidence today that bicycles are a thing of the past on Beijing’s streets.
Increased urbanization and growing diversification of transport has only meant cycling Beijing streets is becoming a greater challenge, particularly in areas where designated bike lanes have been removed. Cycling in Beijing – let alone mastering the art of walking Beijing’s overcrowded streets brimming with buses, cars, bicycles, motorcycles, and some 18 million people – is (in a word) terrifying, yet somehow millions of Beijingers seem to cope just fine.
Helmets are nonexistent, and the agile Chinese have mastered the art of multi-tasking while cycling. Not only do people seem to cart their livelihoods on bikes, but I’ve witnessed whole families perched atop a single tandem, ladies cycling one-handed with umbrella in tow to prevent any sun exposure that would risk their pale complexions; I even saw a man with three 15” computer monitors strapped above his back wheel (and they were not flat screen). And you’ll never see a hint of the abashed – anything goes in the Beijing bike lane. Read the rest of this entry »
I haven’t had a chance to see this elegantly shot film, but I still thought it would be appropriate for me to share it with you.
Click here to view the film makers site.
And click here for AO Scott’s review in The New York Times.
China’s Green Beat, is a neat bilingual blog I stumbled upon the other day, written by John Romankiewicz, an American Fulbright scholar currently living in Beijing, and Zhao Xiangyu, a Chinese citizen from Heilongjiang, a province in the northern part of the country. Check out the above video for a comical take on serious challenge: motorization in the Chinese capital.
Read more about Beijing’s metro, BRT system, Olympic bid, and weather problems.
A miasma of soot and smog sits over Beijing. Photo by +212.
“Should I run behind a bus and breathe in the exhaust? Should I train on the highway during rush hour? Is there any way to acclimate myself to pollution?” These are just a sampling of the strange questions that exercise physiologist for the United States Olympic Committee Randy Wilber has fielded from American athletes anxious to turn out a top-notch performance in Beijing this August, according to a recent New York Times article.
According to Chinese officials, such worries are unfounded. They believe that Beijing will boast blue skies during this summer’s Olympics, when China will openly flex its superpower muscles for the entire world to admire. Unfortunately, Beijing’s plans for creating blue skies rely on a tremendous, temporary green washing of the city – drastic limits on vehicle use and factory closings.
The New York Times article points out that pollution levels in Beijing typically reach five times the World Health Organization standards for safety. Athletes competing in Olympic test events last summer reported contracting respiratory infections and coughing up black mucus. If China’s temporary fixes don’t produce blue skies in Beijing, athletes’ bodies’ may react to extreme air pollution levels by reducing air intake, leading to oxygen debt and cramps. Athletes may also experience allergic reactions. In the worst-case scenario, extreme pollution may lead to heart attacks in even the fittest of athletes. Read the rest of this entry »
Smokey skies. Photo by jaaron
Angel Hsu, a colleague of mine who travels quite a bit to China to promote the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, an accounting tool used for measuring greenhouse gases, sent me an email today after checking the weather in Beijing on the weather channel, to tell me that a new word has entered the weather lexicon: smoke!
Photo by keso of Flickr.
I was on the Wired Blog today and came across an article about Beijing’s ambitious plan to create one of the world’s largest metros, nearly twice as big as the one in Moscow and just edging out London’s vast underground network. A few weeks back I posted an entertaining video about a hard-hat wearing journalist who tests out the new metro, as well as Beijing’s new Bus Rapid Transit system. But I must admit that the Wired piece is a little bit more helpful when it come to the facts and figures. Here’s some of the interesting things it has to say:
Even with all this construction, it’s still probably not enough.
Via Smart Growth Around America, this video of a hard-hitting, hardhat-wearing journalist who goes underground to explore Beijing’s new subway line and later comes out again to examine the city’s new bus rapid transit line, provides a good sense of what’s going on in Beijing with respect to mass transit. If you don’t have time to watch the whole video, here are a few of its more informative facts:
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