THE Lowly Peon

Cars & Their Effect on China 
27 November 2009, 1:54am

Since I arrived in Hangzhou two years ago, I've witnessed people get richer, which has resulted in many more cars. More cars with an already-weak infrastructure has made many cities in China simply less enjoyable: constant congestion, pollution, pedestrian deaths, and the overall stench of diesel fumes.

Disclaimer: I don't really like cars. I think most of you know this. Also: this is a rant. A very long one.

The last few days have been particularly miserable on the road. Every work day for the last two years, I've carpooled with two colleagues to work. Every day for the last two years, I've taken the company bus to downtown then taken a bike or a bus (weather dependent) home from there. I try to go out as much as possible, so traffic has a pretty large impact on my life here in Hangzhou, China.

If there's one thing anyone would notice coming to almost any large city in China, it's that the traffic is bad. All the time. After living here for a while, I sometimes look back on the days when I would get stuck in traffic on the way home from work in northern Chicago, and laugh, thinking of how frustrated I got that I was topping out at a mere 45mph. Now, I'm grateful if I can average more than 15mph.

First impressions

When I first arrived in Hangzhou, I took buses almost everywhere. It helped me learn the city, and prevented me from getting lost; if I got off at the wrong stop, I simply walked across the street and retraced my steps for a stop of two. I had enough basic bus lines memorized that I could get nearly anywhere given one transfer and a bit of walking. At the time, iPhones didn't have maps of Chinese cities, so there was always an element of comfort when I saw a bus I recognized and knew where I was.

Taking buses gave me the impression that the city was huge. I already knew some loose numbers — 6.5mil people (small for China), 15km from here to there, etc — but the feel I got was that the city was enormous. Taking the B支3 from downtown to my house, for example, took about 30 minutes, up to an hour during rush hour. I compared that with going to the suburbs of Chicago from the loop on LSD. I wouldn't dare to walk that far, so I never did.

Initial Frustration

After a bit of time, getting stuck on a bus was no longer a learning experience. While before it afforded me an opportunity to see parts of Hangzhou in more detail, it quickly started to just be a waste of time. It started to feel like I was getting stuck in traffic more and more, and I felt constricted in some way. When I was in a hurry, I took a taxi — something I learned quickly was not faster than a bus when there's any kind of traffic. In fact, taxis often took longer because they tried going strange routes to avoid traffic. (This assumes one could even get an empty taxi. daisy and I have spent many an hour holding on to what little hope we had to find a cab. On many occasions, we waited over an hour, convincing ourselves waiting a few more minutes will yield results.)

The Problem

Then I started to meet more people in Hangzhou. Mostly people of the quickly growing middle class. People with new money — money they wanted to show off. A guy I work with is generally the example I use. We were at my apartment cooking dumplings, and needed to get something from the market. It's an 8 minute walk from my apartment, but he wanted to drive. We drove there, and it took us at least 20 minutes, as one way streets and loaded parking spots made it more difficult. But this didn't phase him: why walk when you can drive? Now when I get caught in traffic, I wonder how many of the drivers are simply out for a stroll, while some of us are in a hurry to get somewhere.

A colleague of mine told me a figure that blew my mind: he said that Hangzhou gets 300 new cars every day, and something like 500 new drivers. Every day! While looking for an article to support this claim, I found that even in 2008, 750,000 cars were sold in one month alone in China! I ask my friends here to give me an idea of what life was like here a few years ago. They say that about a decade ago, seeing a car was a treat. Something exciting and rare. And now, it's hard to walk outside without smelling the exhaust of the twenty cars jammed together right next to you.

The Beginning of a Solution

Hangzhou did something brilliant. They started a new program of public rentable bikes. For a 200rmb deposit (about $30), you can take a bike from almost anywhere in the city (there are 20-30 bikes at every corner, almost every bus stop), and drop it off. Within the hour, it's free. For every hour after that, it's 1rmb (about 15 cents). These bikes changed the way I saw Hangzhou. Rather than taking B支3 for 30-60 minutes, I could take a bike home in 12 minutes! I previously had no idea the city was so small. I ride these bikes everywhere now. When the weather's bad, I put on an extra coat. Of course, I still take buses every now and then when it's really nasty, but am then immediately reminded of why I stopped doing that in the first place.

Hangzhou is also building a subway, due to be finished with the first line or two some time next year. This should help. But it's already a bit too late — Beijing and Shanghai have had subways for years, but they're not enough. They're packed solid with people because there aren't enough trains, and aren't convenient for a large percent of people who would need to walk 30 minutes just to get to a station. It should help, though.

But Still a Problem

Even after these bikes became popular (and now they are very popular), there is still worse traffic than before because there are so many new cars. I wonder what it would be like if there were no bikes. Or if Shanghai had no subway. (Sidenote: it took me, klcomp and paul almost two hours to drive from the airport in Shanghai to downtown. By google maps, it's 42km. That's about 13mph.

I drove with my colleagues and daisy last night to the Hyatt after work for dinner (GPS). It took us 1hr02 to go 14 miles. That's about as fast as you can ride a bike if you're taking it easy. According to my GPS unit, we spent 18 minutes at a complete stop.

Yesterday morning I almost threw up in the car because it reeked so badly of diesel fumes, because there are no restrictions on trucks' emissions. And, just like in the US, many people get huge cars that are classified as trucks to avoid the restrictions. There are also no restrictions on cars that have already been purchased, so if you drive a junker that's twenty years old that puffs black soot and gets 1mpg, that's okay; you just can't buy another one.

Conclusion

I don't know what percent of China's overwhelming pollution comes from cars. I read different statistics about it all the time, and they all conflict. I don't know why people here seem more or less okay with congestion all the time. I don't know why people here don't follow rules, or leave their cars in the middle of the road, effectively blocking traffic for several hours, because they got a scratch on their bumper. All I know is that this is becoming a big problem. And America is going to have the same problems when sprawl becomes unbearable or when the population rises.

So my solution: Walk when you can. Ride a bike if it's further. Take a bus if you need to. Don't get a job at a place that's 20km away from your house. Don't live in a place that's 10km away from the nearest grocery store. It may be cheaper to live and/work in the middle of nowhere, but is it really worth the added cost?