By Xinhua
Beijing : Want to see Beijing? Rent a bike
The Olympic city plans to make 50,000 bicycles available for rent across the city ahead of the 2008 Games to curb pollution and ease traffic congestion.
Brand new bikes will be available at 230 outlets close to subway stations, commercial districts, Olympic venues, hotels and office buildings, according to a “rent a bike” programme carried out by Beijing Bicycle Rental Services, a Beijing-based company.
The company has so far put 5,000 bikes for rent at 30 outlets close to the Beijing Workers’ Stadium, the Drum Tower, the Forbidden City and the Xidan commercial street, according to the company’s website.
By August 2008, the network will be expanded to cover all the Olympic venues, said Wang Yong, general manager of Beijing Bicycle Rental Sevices.
“Organisations and individuals are welcome to join our service network for free, as long as they can provide an area about the size of one bicycle parking space.”
Wang said his company would provide all the bikes for rent and outlets would get one yuan a day for each bike they operate as running costs.
“The outlets will also get a share of the profits at the end of each month, based on their own incomes,” he said. “Not every outlet can make a profit, as people can rent a bike at one outlet and drop it somewhere else close to their destination.”
The programme is being jointly sponsored by the Beijing Environment Protection Bureau and the anti-theft branch of the Chinese capital’s municipal public security bureau because bicycles are frequently stolen in the city.
“This is like a centralised management of bicycles so that citizens won’t have to worry about theft,” said police officer Wang Xiaobing.
To embrace next year’s Olympic Games, Beijing, a city with three million motor vehicles and more than four million drivers, is working all-out to ease traffic congestion and curb pollution.
Monday marks the last day of Beijing’s four-day experiment to test whether pulling 1.3 million cars off its roads each day would prove effective in reducing air pollution during the Games.
Drivers with even-numbered license plates, excluding taxis, buses and emergency vehicles, were told to stay off the roads Friday and Sunday or face fines. Odd-numbered cars faced the same Saturday and Monday.
Experts say pulling 1.3 million motor vehicles off the roads in Beijing each day can reduce exhaust emissions by 40 percent.
Though Beijing’s sky remained mostly grey and misty as a result of stuffy, humid late summer weather, nearly everyone felt the roads were easier to negotiate. “Going to work by bus took me only 15 minutes,” said Zhang Jianguo, a government employee. “Driving took almost the same time.”