Easing traffic

It's no exaggeration to say that riding a bicycle is often faster than driving a car in downtown Beijing during the rush hours, when the city's roads are like an enormous parking lot.

The municipal government of Beijing has announced that it is hammering out policies to encourage Beijingers to drive less and working on a contingency plan for dealing with traffic jams. Hopefully, the local government will come up with feasible options to clear the chronic congestion in the city.

There are more than 4.5 millions cars on the road in Beijing. Despite the city's efforts to exert greater control over the number of cars coming into the city, 550,000 vehicles flow into the capital from the rest of the nation every day.