5More incentive to leave the car at home: Shenzhen considers hiking parking fee
Posted: 10/29/2012 7:00 amAs an increasing number of urban Chinese aspire to own a car, urban planners and city governments have had the headache of trying to contain the amount of traffic on the road.
In 2010, Beijing famously saw a 100km (62 miles) traffic jam which triggered this particularly astute piece of satire.
Different cities have tried different methods to curb traffic. In August, Guangzhou held a lottery draw for license plates. Last year, ahead of the Universiade, Shenzhen expanded its subway network. Other methods have included building more bicycle lanes and incentivizing carpooling.
Now Gasgoo, a leading portal for China’s automotive industry, has reported that Shenzhen is considering raising fees for parking spaces:
The Shenzhen Transport Planning Design and Research Center has been researching potential policies on behalf of the Transport Commission and other municipal departments. The policy that the center came up with separates the city’s parking spaces into three categories: commercial, industrial and residential.
If the policy is implemented, fees for vehicles stopped in commercial zone parking spaces for a whole day will total 240 yuan, four times the current daily cap of 60 yuan and three times Guangzhou’s maximum daily fee of 80 yuan.
So, do you share the research center’s view that this will be more effective than the lottery system used in Beijing and Guangzhuou?
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The cycling infrastructure in Shenzhen seems as though it has been thrown in as an after thought. Or that the town planners in charge of roads and cycle lanes were never in the office on the same day.
Another problem is that often the most direct route in Shenzhen is completely annexed by huge roads with no obvious route to take meaning navigation can prove very much a case of trial and error end end in frustration.
The roads and bike lanes that are designated for cycling are incredibly poorly built many bike lanes fail to even have sloped drop offs leaving you to drop off 10 inch curbs or they are blocked by parked cars or stupidly placed bollards.
Parked cars are always seen on the pavements I think that raising the penalties and perhaps even actually enforcing them would be a good start but it will most likely be a too small patch on the wound.
The ban on scooters should probably be lifted not that I like scooters but they take up a damn less space than cars, limit them to 15mph put proper separated bike/scooter lanes in on the main roads like in Shanghai and you might start to see improvements.
Tricycles should be given more consideration as they provide a green and useful solution to a lot of urban problems and with the right infrastructure can be great for cities.
Thanks for the thoughts. Lack of coordination between, and sometimes even within, government departments is often a problem.
Personally I like navigating through trial and error. But that’s just me.
Yeah I like it too but if you are trying to get somewhere within a specific time frame its a pain in the ass. I’m all for urban flaneur bike rides, I love little detours that reveal interesting parts of a city but cycling as a tangible utility, not just a weekend leisure pursuit, should be at the forefront of any modern cities civic infrastructure.
Would you say Shenzhen is markedly inferior to other Chinese cities or do you not have this experience?
I would say that it was inferior. Basically, it seems to have been designed with the car in mind in anticipation of a time when everyone has a car because they are so rich and as I said before that other forms of transport have been added as and when as an afterthought, except perhaps the metro.
Other cities in China have already had large populations that have been established with utilizing bicycles, trikes etc and have evolved with this critical mass as a part of it.
Shenzhen seems as though it is built in advance of the migration ‘Field of Dreams’ style in anticipation of a wealthy new Chinese generation. Which is a con, because it’s all going to start falling down sooner or later [maybe]. [probably].