Beijing’ers getting back to riding their bikes
Office worker David Dai is one of a growing army of Beijing residents returning to two-wheeled transport.
But the 28-year-old does not rely on his own pedal power – like hundreds of thousands of others, he has bought an electric bike.
These battery-powered, and virtually silent, machines have become increasingly common on the streets of the Chinese capital.
With roads often clogged with cars – there are now four million vehicles in Beijing – they offer a speedy way to get around.
But not everyone seems to like them: government officials are unsure about how to deal with this explosion of electric bicycles.
Congested streets
China used to be known as the “kingdom of bicycles”. In the 1980s, four out of five commuters pedalled to work on them in Beijing.
But as the capital’s residents became richer following economic development, they ditched their bikes for four-wheeled transport.
Recent statistics suggest that only one in five city residents now use an ordinary bicycle to travel around.
In a matter of just a few years Beijing has gone from a city with few private cars to one where traffic jams are commonplace.
But many Beijing residents are now buying electric bicycles to avoid wasting time on congested streets.
“It takes only 10 minutes to ride my electric bike from home to work,” said Mr Dai.
Man riding an electric bike in Beijing
Hundreds of thousands of people have bought electric bicycles“If I took the bus, I’d have to spend time waiting for it, and then I could be trapped in a traffic jam. It could take me half an hour to make the same journey.”
You wouldn’t catch CCT on one.
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I tried posting a comment but it didn’t show up, so I tried again and it gave me a “duplicate comment” error. Perhaps my comment is been held for review?
There was a proposal late last year that got much discussion on the radio here regarding new rules for electric bikes. Basically they were going to treat electric bikes the same way as motor vehicles, both with regards to traffic rules as well as requiring riders to take traffic tests and to be insured. But this proposal never went into effect and it has quietly faded from the public eye. They probably realized it would be too hard to put into practise and/or got too much pressure from the manufacturers of these electric bikes.
I personally hate electric bikes, having had several close encounters in the past. And my latest accident that I mentioned in the insurance post actually involved an electric bike. Even the traffic officer that was monitoring the intersection and who sort of witnessed the whole thing told me that had the proposal been put into place, the outcome (of determining who was at fault) would’ve been much different.
While I do support alternative forms of transport, let’s not do so at the expense of safety.
Beijing didn’t know when it was well off. That beautiful sea of bicycles translated into a once healthy population. Private cars are fine but they should be stabled outside the city. As for the electric bikes, they should be dual mode, one for exercise and the other for speed and distance.