To keep wheels moving

Injecting vigor into the auto industry will undoubtedly contribute much to the increase in consumption. But it comes with an environmental price. The question is: How can we balance its positive role in economic growth and its negative impact on air quality and traffic flow?

The development of the country's car industry will hardly be sustainable unless this problem is adequately addressed.

A plan for strengthening the auto industry was discussed by the State Council yesterday. It includes a series of policies to encourage car purchase. Such moves as slashing taxes on auto purchase and tightening rules for old cars to be recycled, are meant to keep growth of car manufacture and sales at 12 percent in the coming three years.

There is nothing wrong with such a goal. But something must be included in the plan to prevent the industry from suffering the same fate as the three US auto giants.

Among other things, the failure to design fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly vehicles has been repeatedly cited as one of the causes for their being not competitive enough against their counterparts from Japan and other countries.

To be specific, we need higher fuel-economy standards for carmakers. They must be required to produce fuel-efficient cars. This will not only save consumers money, but also reduce the amount of exhaust emissions.

However, the promotion of car manufacture and purchase should not be understood as an alternative to the development of urban public transport.

The expansion of public transport should never be compromised by this or any other such plan. This is because cheaper and more convenient public transit will encourage more urbanites to give up driving their own cars. Everyone agrees this will ease traffic congestion and reduce air pollution from car exhaust emissions.

To have a car of one's own is one thing, how to use it is another.

With the improvement in people's living standards, more people should be encouraged to have their own cars, but that does not necessarily mean that they should use them to travel from their home to their workplaces everyday.

There should be no conflict between strengthening the auto industry and expanding public transport networks.

Just as only fuel-efficient and green cars can hope to have a sustainable future, public transport too has to become cheaper and more convenient. Changing the way both cars and public transport networks are made and used is the ultimate answer to the challenges of urban traffic management in the future.

(China Daily 01/15/2009 page8)