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Solution to traffic woes is simple

By Hong Liang (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-17 07:52

The traffic carnage on a bridge to Pudong in Shanghai, allegedly caused by the deranged driver of a public bus, was a gory reminder of the kamikaze road manners of the city's motorists.

Anyone who has lived in Shanghai for long would understand that the accident, which killed 3 people, including the bus driver in question, and injured many others, should not be treated as an isolated case. It was, rather, a violent outbreak of a chronic illness that is not only posing a constant threat to the safety of the people, but also inhibiting the development of Shanghai as a truly cosmopolitan city.

To be sure, Shanghai has made tremendous progress in promoting civility as part of the government's intensive efforts to ensure community harmony. But such efforts have been marred by the chaotic traffic conditions that are a common sight on the flyovers, highways and streets in and around the city at most time of the day.

Such traffic chaos, obvious to any visitor as soon as he steps out of Hongqiao domestic airport, is not caused by the lack of roads or deficient traffic management, which seem to be at least on par with that of, say, Hong Kong, with which I am most familiar. Rather, it is caused by the many rude and inconsiderate drivers of private cars, delivery vans, trucks and buses. Refusing to give way to anyone, they help create traffic jams at many highway exits and busy road junctions.

Most perplexing, of course, is the lack of any apparent effort by the authorities to enforce the traffic rules that should go a long way in addressing many of the congestion problems on the roads. Such indifference is definitely out of character with the otherwise aggressively proactive Shanghai municipal government, which is known to care deeply about the city's image to the outside world, a concern heightened by the countdown to the opening of the 2010 World Expo in May.

Traffic on the four-lane highway from the residential suburb of Minhang district, where I used to live, to the city center backs up for miles every weekday morning because cars traveling on all outside lanes are blocked by those cutting into the slow moving traffic of the innermost lane at the approach to a busy exit. I have never seen the traffic policemen, who were sometimes posted at that exit, taking action against the transgressors.

Even in Hong Kong, where there are too many cars on too few roads, traffic jams are rare occurrences because most motorists know better than to drive into an intersection when the traffic ahead is blocked. What's more, the fine for being caught stopping at an intersection is steep indeed.

But in Shanghai, traffic jams at major intersections are a matter of cause during busy, and sometimes not so busy, hours. A taxi driver refused my fare on a Saturday afternoon because he said he dreaded the traffic jam at the junction of Xizang Road and Huaihai Road in downtown Shanghai. I could understand his feeling. I walk pass that intersection every evening on my way home from the office, and the traffic pile up there is truly dreadful.One evening a few weeks ago, for no apparent reason, a traffic policeman was posted there to direct traffic. What a difference did it make.

Traffic moved smoothly, the deafening honking by irate motorists stopped and pedestrians could cross the roads safely at the zebra crossings. Since then, I have never seen another traffic policeman on duty there.But that one occasion has demonstrated that the traffic problem in Shanghai can be solved not by building more roads or adding more traffic lights, but by putting more men and women in uniform on the job. It's the authority of the uniform that counts.

E-mail: jamesleung@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/17/2009 page9)