Editorials

Stressful commute

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-07 07:58

Editor's note: A big city may cost residents' more time to travel to work.

The amount of time taken by an urbanite to commute to work may be regarded as a sure indicator of not just her quality of life, but also how efficiently the city and its traffic system are managed.

A recent survey on China's urbanization by the Chinese Academy of Sciences may just point in that direction.

On average, it takes a city dweller 31 minutes to travel from home to the workplace, the survey across 50 major cities shows.

The average travel time of Beijing residents is the longest, at 52 minutes, while it is 48 minutes in Guangzhou, 47 in Shanghai and 46 minutes in Shenzhen.

The bigger the city, the longer it takes residents to travel to work.

Longer commute times mean more funds have to be pumped in for public transport and maintenance, to say nothing of fatigue and many boring hours of travel.

Shorter commutes are considered key to improved quality of life.

Long hours on the road mean less time to spend with family members, and not enough time to spare on leisure and fitness.

Beijing and other metros are building more subway lines to ease commute times for its residents.

Yet, the rapid expansion of cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou means work commutes will be less than efficient for residents no matter how much money goes into public transit systems.

Perhaps the better question to ask is, how large should a city be for residents to get by comfortably?

(China Daily 06/07/2010 page8)