Hyde Park Urbanist

DIY Stroller

I snapped this photo of a neat-o baby stoller near the Drum & Bell Towers.  The kid has a 360-degree view and gets to stand up in it.  A toddler could do worse, don't you think?  If the parents are smart enough to make their own roomy stroller, I bet they figure out a way to get the kid thru college.  Just guessin'.

"The Old and New Coexisted in a Casual Melange"

Quoting Beijing: From Imperial Capital to Olympic City (p.144) talking about 1920's Beijing:

In an era of transition, the new did not simply displace the old.  Instead, old and new coexisted in a casual melange.  Almost every mode of transport could be found on the streets of Beijing: automobiles, trolleys, rickshaws, bicycles, animal-drawn carts, and, on the backstreets, cargo-laden camels.

I got here too late for the camels!  Until railroads were laid around 1900, much merchandise was brought into Beijing on camels via Silk Road routes.

Beijing Plans to Regulate Away Traffic Jams

The vice-mayor of Beijing whose portfolio included traffic has departed for Xinjiang as carbuyers rush to register new cars in advance of 2011 regulations.  While China Daily, the government's English language newspaper, touts the new curbs on government cars as well as plans to build more parking spaces and improve public transportation, the real story here is a new set of regulations limiting personal vehicles, which I'm going to take a stab at explaining even though I haven't yet found a suitable online source to link to.

But first, let me try to describe the regulatory environment in China in a couple paragraphs.  The judicial branch of government consists of people who have a wide range of levels of competence, but the entire branch-- judges, administrative regulators and police-- is still an arm of the Communist Party.  This lack of an independent judiciary means that enforcement of rules & regulation relies more on power relationships than on letter of the law.  (I know that's a little true about the United States or any other country, but it's an order of magnitude truer in China.)  A powerful person can get away with breaking a lot of rules as long as s/he doesn't offend another powerful person.

And there are a lot of rules & regulations-- so many that the police could never enforce them all, so they concentrate on answering complaints.  We refer to them as "peace officers" in the U.S., but that's a much more suitable description of the Chinese police who spend a lot of time seeking compromises between aggrieved parties (like folks in traffic accidents).  The police turn a blind eye toward small infractions like stickering sidewalks or unlicensed streetside vending.  However, they're notorious for enforcing one specific regulation designed to decrease the volume of traffic: one weekday each week, dependent upon your license plate number, you can't drive that car.   One day a week, an expensive machine sits in your parking garage unusable.

In 2011, Beijing (and I've only heard this word of mouth) will limit new municipal car registrations to about a third the number issued last year.  Hence, December saw a surge of new car buying.  Are the new regulations enforceable?  People believe the police will be able to spot drivers lacking a suitably-numbered Beijing license plate. 

Is there a more market-oriented solution available?  Yes, I believe so and unfortunately I have to throw the most hurtful insult possible at Beijingers: Shanghai handles this better.  In Beijing, car registrations cost about US$80.  Shanghai charges US$6800 per plate.  Roads are clogged, the air is polluted and something has to be done to limit traffic.  The choice is between highly disruptive & wasteful regulations or fees that can then be plowed into infrastructure like new roads and public transportation.  

Beijing's Subway Sprouting New & Longer Tentacles

The Chicago Transit Authority boasts 144 rail stations.  Today, Beijing's subway* contains 126.  Within the next week, however, China's capitol will open 45 new subway stations.  (That's if I counted right.  Somewhere between 40 and 50 anyway-- that much I'm sure of.)  Beijing will vault ahead in track mileage.

While the United States dithered over an insufficient stimulus package in 2009 (due to the neanderthalic intransigence of Republicans), China forged forward, literally forged forward, building infrastructure.  Stimulus money went to municipalities and Beijing used some of its share to speed up its already ambitious subway construction plans.

The Jing looked at its planned routes and made the wise decision to proceed with the least expensive expansions first.  Elevated lines are less expensive than subways (by a factor of at least 3, I believe) and most of the suburban lines are elevated, so that's where the new lines and extensions were built.  Very few of the new stations opening this week are truly subway, below ground, but they're all going to be part of the same metro system.  I use the future tense because the ten stations set to open this year on the Fangshan line in southwestern Beijing are actually separated from the rest of the subway system.  It'll be connected once its more expensive underground section is completed, probably in the next couple years.

One of the exciting finds for me here has been an English-language writer for BJ's City Weekend online, David Feng, aka "The Beijingologist".  Feng has written short blurbs and taken photos at all the stations scheduled to open this year, a remarkable feat, and I find myself anticipating each new Feng post.  As much as Feng delights me with our shared obsession, I still have to take issue with one of his attitudes.  Or maybe just his tone.  I suppose it's true that some of these stations are going up "bang in the middle of nowhere."

But that's the way it should happen.  It's much cheaper to put in rail transit and then build up around it rather than tunneling under existing buildings.  And Beijing can design for high density in these locations from the get-go rather than knocking down low-rise, underperforming buildings in the next few years.  Riders on chronically-crowded inner city lines would prefer new subways close-in to ease that situation, but those lines will come.  In the meantime, it makes sense to build cheap elevated lines so that new homes constructed with transit in mind can follow in their wake.

*Everyone seems to use the word "subway" here even when talking about the elevated stations, so I'll do the same.  It's all part of the same Metro system.

Tamen Zai Zuo Shenme? Getting Somewhere.

What are these people doing?  They're all going somewhere.

This is my favorite picture from Beijing so far-- a fairly typical late October Sunday at an intersection on my favorite street, Gulou, just south of the Andingmen stop on the #2 subway loop.

Let's count the transportation alternatives.  Besides the best-for-the-planet walking, we have the worst-for-the-planet private cars.  You got your taxis and two kinds of buses-- one on an electric trolley line and a couple double deckers, probably gas fueled.  A few bicycles, including a mom about to pedal two children around.  Across the street, there's a three-wheel, partially motorized cart.  Plus, you got your horse-drawn cart of watermelons for sale.  All in front of the Lenovo retail store.

But wait, there's more!  We also have two kids on roller skates. And they're headed for the horse!  That won't end well...

Tamen Zai Zuo Shenme? Juggling.

"Tamen zai zuo shenme" is Mandarin for "What are they doing?"-- a question that pops into my head a dozen times a day.  In this case, I can explain it.  Mostly.

The retail space in the center of the photo is like a mini-mall for cell phones.  They're having a promotion.  To draw attention to the promotion, they've hired an emcee and a couple of jugglers. 

The fellow with the 3-wheel cart is a recycler, taking a break from doing the Lord's work.  You can see the cardboard he's collected and his bag is likely full of all kinds of typical recycling stuff like cans and bottles as well as stuff we usually don't bother with in the U.S. like styrofoam and odd pieces of metal.

The pavement the audience is standing on is the portion of street set apart for bikes and scooters and cars about to turn right.  You'll note the subway station entrance is plopped down in the middle of the sidewalk here and there's only a narrow bit left on the street side and even less on the building side, which is kind of a pain to walk around.  Note also that the station has English language signage, which is standard practice throughout the Beijing subway system.

This is the southwest entrance for the Renmin University stop on the #4 line and Renmin, which translates as "People's", owns the building the University's Center sits atop.  While all (or maybe almost all) universities in China are connected to the government and the government is a one-party institution, Renmin, as you might guess, has a special relationship to the party.  It may seem a bit odd that we decided to situate ouselves at Renmin, but it works for reasons I'd rather not go into.

I'd like to also mention that the cell phone place is cut out of an apartment complex.  That is, this street has changed from residential to commercial with ground floors retrofitted.  My guess is that living above these stores has some disadvantages and the stores face some interesting design challenges, but it's basically workable.  Inexpensive commerce is right outside your door.  Untidy but convenient.  Beijing, it seems, has embraced mixed use zoning in practice if not in law.

Vending Books and Dating Values

I took a 3-day vacation in Seoul recently.  At an el station on the Seoul Metro, I spotted this vending machine that sells popular books.  Rail transit plus books... that's a swell combination for your Hyde Park Urbanist.

But I'm not sure how worthwhile these Korean language books are.  The A, B, O, and AB books are about blood types, which many Japanese and Koreans believe influences personalities and therefore should be considered for dating purposes.

Asians seem to put a lot of value into stereotypes like this, with regional generalizations deemed important in China.  Beijing women are considered to be independent, while Shanghai men tend to be led by their wives-- so I've heard, anyway.  All this informs dating preferences.

Americans may have individual preferences for certain looks, I guess, but it seems we tend to value one thing more than any other when it comes to dating.  Most of us just want the sexiest partner we can find.

Bike Rails and Blind Paths

I took this photo while in Seoul.  That's a stairway to cross over an el platform for the Metro.  Note the rail along the right side of the stairs to wheel a bike up.  Even inexpensive improvements to make bike/transit combinations more accessible are welcoming.

Those yellow inlays at the forefront of the photo are for the blind.  You see them all over Seoul and even on newer Beijing sidewalks, usually near the edge away from the road. 

Transit on Steroids

Central planning, I would submit, works best in areas where goals are obvious and quantity trumps quality.  Vaccinations, basic literacy, mass production of anything-- these are goods that call for centralized planning.  I'd include public transit with those, but only to a point.

Let's consider the building of subways in Beijing:

In 2005, the Beijing Transportation Development Programme (2004–20) was issued to speed up the construction of a comprehensive public transportation system focusing on rail transit and large capacity rapid transit systems and buses as the base. In 2006, the general concept of giving priority to the development of public transportation was revealed in the View on Giving Priority to the Development of Public Transport...

Subway lines 4, 5, 8, 10 and the Airport Line began operating in 2009, bringing the combined track length of the subway to 228 kilometres; the intervals of trains was shortened 2 minutes, 15 seconds for Subway Line 1, 2 minutes for Line 2 and 3 minutes for lines 5, 13 and the Batong Line. Subway lines with a single price of 2 yuan carried 34 percent of public transportation passengers in 2009, 14 percent more than in 2008.  

According to the Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, in 2009, nine subway lines now under construction—Line 6 Phase I, Line 8 Phase II, Line 9, Line 10 Phase II, Line 15 and the Daxing Line in Daxing District, the Fangshan Line in Fangshan District, the Yizhuang Line in Daxing District and the Changping Line—will add up to 209 kilometres of track length to the system.

The CTA has 224.1 miles of track and 144 stations.  Beijing's subway has about the same number of stations on 142 miles of track-- but the size of Beijing's system will probably double over the next ten years.  That's the magic of quantity in a centrally planned economy.

Ah, but what about quality?  An express train runs from the Beijing airport to the rest of the subway system and it's very fast.  However, consider this eyewitness report:

There is no place for big luggages in the train and you have to put your luggages in the aisle. When I get off at the Dongzhimen station, I was disappointed again. You will have to carry your big luggages by hand because there is no escalator here too just like the Xizhimen transfer station. I talked to the security guy and he told me that all the passengers from the airport have to use the stairs and he heard lots of complains about this issue.

Or, as visiting writer-in-residence James Fallows put it during a recent lecture I attended: the express train is very convenient to take from the international terminal, as long as you're not arriving with any luggage.

The Transit Safety Hat

From the website Crazy Pics.  Probably available in a wide variety of colors.