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Beijing registered a record 22,079 new motor vehicles in just the first 18 days of the year, as city planners brace for the number of cars, trucks and busses to speed past three million by May.

 

"We issued more than 2,400 license plates in a single day," said a spokesman with Beijing Municipal Traffic Management Bureau. He attributed the sharp rise in the number of registered new motor vehicles to a buying spree that usually occurs before Spring Festival, which falls on Feb. 18 this year.

 

There are now 2.88 million motor vehicles in Beijing, including 2.06 million private vehicles. The number of people with driver licenses now exceeds 4.24 million.

 

It is estimated the number of motor vehicles will top 3.3 million by the time the Beijing Olympic Games are held in 2008.

 

Chinese experts say that while there are fewer cars in Beijing than in London, Tokyo and Paris and Bangkok, Beijing's drivers use their cars more frequently.

 

"Private car owners in the capital use their cars four times more frequently than private car owners in Tokyo," an expert said, blaming the high use of private cars for road congestion and serious air pollution in Beijing.

 

Zhai Shuanghe, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Traffic Management Bureau, says "increasing the length of roads can never catch up with the growth in the number of motor vehicles."

 

Zhai said traffic jams are hampering the city's ability to respond to accidents in its downtown, adding there were 5,808 road accidents in the Chinese national capital last year, which cause 1,373 deaths.

 

A report on living quality in Chinese cities in 2006, published by Beijing International Institute for Urban Development last September, says the traffic in Beijing is the most unsatisfactory among 287 Chinese cities.

 

Mayor Wang Qishan is determined to change this by taking a range of measures to encourage more people to use public buses, including slashing public bus travel fares beginning from Jan. 1.

 

The municipal government has earmarked 4.98 billion yuan (about US$622 million) for development of public transport this year, a rise of 1.31 billion yuan (US$164 million) from last year.

 

In the meantime, the municipal finance will also shed 11.67 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) in financing improvement of public transport infrastructure this year.

 

The city has also pledged to spend 100 billion yuan (US$12.6 billion) more in years ahead so that public transport will become a prime form of people's traveling in the city.

 

The city's subway and light rail systems will be extended to 273 km in 2010 and to 568 km in 2015.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 23, 2007)