Beijing launches car quota to counter gridlock

[derby378]

Source: Associated Press

For thousands of hopeful commuters in China's capital, 2011 started with a click, not a bang.

Residents hoping to snap up Beijing car license plate numbers under a new quota system aimed at easing paralyzing traffic logged onto a website that launched in the first moments of the new year. Within 10 minutes, 6,000 people had applied for new plate numbers, the Beijing Daily newspaper reported.

By 5 p.m., more than 53,000 applications had been submitted online, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The applicants are competing for the first batch of 20,000 plates, which are to be awarded by lottery on Jan. 25. Every month a new batch of plates will become available.

The new system aims to reduce the number of cars in the notoriously gridlocked capital. The city will only allow 240,000 new car registrations in 2011 - two-thirds less than last year - and is parceling them out through the monthly online lottery.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CHINA_BEIJING_CARS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-01-01-21-07-47

[David__77]

1. That would never happen if China were a multipartisan republic with separation of powers.

Not advocating their system, but perhaps they can start to actually implement policies to control the insane urban sprawl and pollution.

[watajob]

2. Oh, yeah?!

Well, what's good for Chana is good for China! Oh. Wait...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. It was truly a mistake to switch from the bicycle to the car

The air quality was bad enough with just bicycles. It must be hellish with the addition of thousands of cars.

The city is basically flat, and a healthy person should be able to ride a bike across it. When I was there in 1990, spending two weeks on a university campus, the professors who didn't live in on-campus apartments all commuted to work by bicycle, and some of them appeared to be in their sixties.

[Duppers]

4. same was true for Shanghai

Now, there are electric scooters all over Shanghai's back streets but Beijing seems to have less of them. Perhaps since this new law is implemented, Beijing-ers will switch to more scooters.

[rpannier]

5. I was watching China TV news last week and they're now discussing the feasibility of moving the

capitol from Beijing
It doesn't appear that it will go anywhere but I found it interesting

I think the license plate scheme is the first step in a process to try and control the traffic problems. The last resort is moving the capitol

[liberal N proud]

6. They drive like they rode bicycles

Lines and lanes mean nothing.