Beijing to popularize public bike rental services

Beijing will make every effort to popularize public bike rental services in pilot regions during 2010.

In order to develop the "12th Five-Year Traffic Plan," the Beijing Transportation Research Center held a specialist forum titled "Green Travel and Urban Development" on the morning of Aug. 26 and received suggestions and advice from people of all walks of life.

According to Chen Yanling, the head of the Transportation Programming Department under the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport, Beijing plans to launch pilot public bike rental services along subway line 5 in the Cultural Protection Zone of Dongcheng District, along the Batong subway line between the Beiyuan station and Tucheng station and in the regions within 3 kilometers of the stations on subway line 4 in the Zhongguancun comprehensive business district.

After they accumulate enough successful experiences, the service will be popularized in the whole city. According to sources, the public bike rental service kiosks will be established every 500 meters in the pilot regions, mainly in business districts, around subway lines and beside large-scale public facilities.

It is also reported that the proportion of bike travel had sharply dropped from more than 30 percent in 2005 to less than 18 percent in the first half of 2010. According to the data from a recent survey, traveling by bicycles had the lowest satisfaction degree among respondents, with the unsatisfactory rate reaching as high as nearly 40 percent.

In the future, Beijing's transportation departments will diligently attempt to raise the share of citizens using bikes and public transportation, and they will strive for a goal of having 65 percent of citizens using the three green transportation modes of railways, public buses and bicycles.

By People's Daily Online