Traffic woes to ease with express thoroughfares ( 2003-11-17 10:58) (China Daily)
The Chinese capital, facing an ever serious
traffic problem, is building an express road network to connect the current four
ring roads to ease the city's traffic woes.
According to Zhou Zhengyu, deputy director of the Beijing Transportation
Committee, the city will have 15 such thoroughfares in place - with no traffic
lights - by 2006. They will link the fifth, fourth and third ring roads down
through the urban second ring road.
Zhou said, so far, 80 per cent of the 280 kilometres of express roads have
been completed and another 38.6 kilometres of roads will be finished by next
year.
The city's traffic map so far has linked four completed ring roads like
growth rings on a tree, but there are not enough feeder roads yet to connect the
outer rings to the downtown area.
Zhou said his committee will team up with other departments to improve the
traffic management system to carry out other traffic-mitigating measures,
including charging more for parking. Paying more to park may keep motorists from
using their cars.
Liu Xiaoming, another deputy director of the transportation committee, said
the city is expected to invest 35 billion yuan (US$4.2 billion) next year to
better its traffic situation.
Besides the construction of express roads, Liu said a public transit network
and a special bus line would extend 130 kilometres next year.
In another development in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong
Province, officials have decided to construct a new modern railway station in
the Panyu District, hoping the facility will become a new railway transit hub
and fortify its status as a logistics centre in the country.
The total investment for the new railway station will come to between 4.1
billion yuan (US$494 million) and 5.1 billion yuan (US$614 million), which will
make it the most modern and largest passenger railway station in Asia, according
to Du Wen, director of the Preparation Committee of Guangzhou New Railway
Station.
And Guangzhou, in the core of the Pearl River Delta, together with Shanghai,
Beijing and Wuhan, will become one of the four largest railway passenger
transportation hubs in 2020 when the new station starts services, Du said.
Guangzhou Railway Station, which lies in Guangzhou's busy Yuexiu District,
will be closed and all its passenger train services will be moved to the new
railway station in the future.
The railway could have trains that reach speeds of more than 300 kilometres
an hour in upcoming years, Du said.
Guangzhou municipal government has decided to open multichannels to raise the
large sums needed for construction, Du said.
