I live in Suzhou, and as such am well accustomed to the pain-in-the-assedness of the seething swarms of scooters that buzz about the city, apparently oblivious to my peripatetic situation. These things are everywhere, and have more than once jutted in front of busses I’ve been on, causing the passengers in the back to intimately greet their until-then unknown friends in the front.
However, they’re cheap. They’re relatively convenient, and as most of them are electric, they are certainly better for inner-city air quality. They are also the way many people get to and from their livelihoods, and indeed for some, earn their livelihoods. Which is why I hope the powers that be wake up and smell the green tea and don’t repeat the knee jerk reaction that will take place January 1st in Guangzhou.
Motorcycle ban one of many sweeping edicts in China
By Tim Johnson
McClatchy NewspapersGUANGZHOU, China – When officials decided that swarms of motorcycles and scooters had become a plague on the streets of this huge city, they didn’t wobble in their course of action.
The solution? Ban motorcycles.
As of Jan. 1, the city’s 260,000 or so registered motorcycles will be forced off the roads. Tens of thousands of people who use the vehicles to make deliveries or otherwise earn livings must turn in their motorcycles or take them out of the city. (read article)
The thing that is most troublesome about this is that it is consistent with the way things get done in China. For all the talk of slow change, and ‘developing harmoniously’, on the ground it just doesn’t seem to be the case. The article above states a number of cases where the rulers of the nation conjure up ‘solutions’ to ‘problems’ that (A) cause horrible discomfort for the people they effect, (B) don’t solve the root problem.
An excellent case in point was this past summer’s savagery towards dogs for the simple reason that a couple people have died from rabies. Rather than develop an effective control system to enforce rabies vaccinations in all registered dogs – government officials instead thought it best to wander the streets with canes and beat the things to death while they were being taken for a walk.
One wonders what they’ll do to Guanzhou’ers caught on a scooter.
A ban might not be a flawless solution, but the madness has to end somehow. I don’t know if you have been to GuangZhou, but I live here and all these motorcycles really is a pain in the ass. They are probably the cause for like 90% of all traffic accidents, and allot of pollution.
It has been known that this ban would come for more than 2 years, so it’s not like it is a surprise to all those people making a living out of it.
I think that this ban, although it has some negative sides, still is a good solution.
Sorry, I should have included that quote – as it cites how many accidents they’re involved in. Now, if Guangzhou is anything like Suzhou, there are more bikes than cars on the roads – and if they’re involved in 50% of the accidents, but there’s more of them than cars, and it doesn’t say if cars were also involved in those accidents… I don’t know – kind of a washy figure.
Regardless, I do see your point, and I wasn’t aware that the ban was public knowledge for the previous two years. However, how come the promotion of moderation is not a better solution? I think the point of the article, and the point of this post, was that these sweeping edicts are not very well thought out, as they don’t make room for the complexity that is society.
Yeah, Guangzhou has moved up enough that there are a lot less bicycles here than in other places, but not to the point that everyone has the money to take taxis everywhere or the time to take the bus that the Swede does. The subway is good, but it only extends to a fraction of the places that will be affected by the ban.
That said, the ban, which has been phased in over the past two years, besides affecting the livelihoods of the hundreds of thousands of people who use motorbikes for personal use, won’t do much to reduce crime or pollution overall. A lot of people will upgrade to cars or vans (how’s that emissions index?), a lot of people will find it impossible to find new work, and the very very few who do use motorbikes to snatch purses will most likely just go to Dongguan.
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