Beijing traffic cut by half during Olympics?

Faced with persistent air pollution despite promises to stage a green Olympics, Beijing is planning to reduce its motor traffic by half during the Games to improve air quality and ease traffic flow, according to a newspaper report on Wednesday.

The article, in The Beijing News, said the number of vehicles in the city was expected to reach 3.3 million by August, meaning that roughly 1.65 million cars and trucks would be pulled off roads each day!!!
The city will dedicate lanes to Olympic traffic and increase public transportation with new shuttle buses to accommodate visitors and local residents, the article said.
Beijing officials have not announced Olympic contingency measures, but the newspaper said the traffic plan had been completed.
The city’s air pollution — ranked by some studies as among the worst in the world — is one of the most pressing challenges facing Olympic organizers, with fewer than 200 days until the opening ceremony on Aug. 8. Many Olympic teams plan to train outside the city to protect athletes. Besides whatever measures Beijing officials take to reduce pollution, factories throughout north China may face shutdowns during the Games.
“The task of controlling pollution and traffic congestion is arduous,” Guo Jinlong, the acting mayor of Beijing, said Sunday, the state media reported.

Traffic restrictions have been anticipated for the Olympics since last August, when Beijing conducted a four-day experiment that limited motorists to driving on alternate days, depending on whether the last number on their license plate was odd or even.
That test eliminated more than one million vehicles each day, easing traffic but having a less substantial effect on air pollution....

For the past decade, Beijing has taken cleanup measures and officials have reported steady progress in reducing pollutants through the city’s “Blue Sky” air quality monitoring program. But a new report from an American environmental consultant has cast doubt on the validity of the program’s measurements and suggested that despite official reassurances, air quality has not improved in the past nine years.

So, Olympic Officials is facing a great challenge to live up to the promise of "A Green Olympics"
- 194 days to go!

Beijings population blast 16 miljon mark...

two year ahead of scheule....

Olympic Games host Beijing, scrambling to provide water and infrastructure for its burgeoning population, has exceeded its target population of 16 million two years early, state media reported on Tuesday.
The number of permanent residents in the capital of the world's most populous country reached 16.33 million at the end of 2007, an increase of 520,000 since last year.

12.13 million residents carrying "hukou," or residence permits, and some 4.2 million migrant workers, had surpassed the city's 2010 ceiling of 16 million two years early, official Web portal Chinanews.com.cn said.The 2007 increase was the fastest in five years for Beijing, which has become a magnet for migrant workers seeking work on massive infrastructure projects for the Olympic Games opening in August.

Beijing's municipal government announced last year it would limit its population to 18 million by 2020. But in December, a senior population expert warned that Beijing's population had already reached over 17 million, highlighting the difficulty of reining in population growth from China's mobile population of surplus rural workers.Beijing's acting mayor Guo Jinlong this week said the "resource and environmental problems" brought by the city's soaring population were its "most pressing issue" going forward, the report said.

Experts have warned that Beijing has already 3 million more people than its resources can feed. An extra 2.5 million visitors are expected to descend on the capital during the Olympics.Beijing has spent billions of yuan building a huge canal to bring back-up water from reservoirs in neighboring Hebei.

Chinese food culture goes digital

One of the most famous course in China is Beijing Roasted Duck. This is a must for many people coming to Beijing - I can not understand why...
A real Beijing duck is roasted in the traditional way. The duck is hung in the oven roasted by flames burning from fruitwood. It takes about 45 minutes for the duck to be done and chefs keep adjusting the duck to ensure it's evenly roasted.

China's oldest Peking duck restaurant chain, Quanjude (Group) Co., Ltd., has come under fire from the public as it plans to use electric ovens to replace traditional hand-roasting procedures in cooking ducks. The electric ovens, based on computerized operation jointly developed by Quanjude and a German company, will keep the handmade techniques and simplify roasting procedures the compant claims. Many of the Beijing-based outlets, particularly those in other regions of the country, must use the new ovens that will ensure quality standards and automatic duck production.

"We common people not only eat Quanjude duck for its flavor, but also for the hundreds of years of tradition and culture that our ancestors left to us," Han Xiao, a local resident in Beijing, was quoted by Monday's China Youth Daily as saying. "The latter is the precious part that cannot be bought," Han said.

According to a survey jointly conducted by the newspaper, 76.8 percent of the respondents opposed the plan, while 62.8 percent worried that the move might turn Peking ducks into "fast food." "If Quanjude uses electric ovens to cook its ducks then what difference is there from KFC?" many customers surveyed voiced their doubts.

A respondent was quoted as saying that "Automation and standardization are good, but they are not the 'Bible' for every industry."
"The reason why Quanjude can sell one duck at the hefty price of 198 yuan (about 27.3 U.S. dollars) is that the duck was a handmade work of art instead of a product churned out on a production line."
The company, which sells more than three million ducks a year to some five million patrons, has raised 388 million yuan (52 million dollars) on the Shenzhen bourse after it became listed late last year.

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