Car restrictions offer short-term traffic solutions

Better bus, subway systems needed to lure drivers away from personal vehicles

Many Chinese cities are trying to ease traffic congestion by limiting new car registrations. However, it seems that these limits have proven more successful at stirring public discontent than reducing traffic on the country's crowded roads.

China boasts the largest auto market in the world, and last year 22 million vehicles were sold in the country. Amidst this raging fever for all things automotive, six cities have so far imposed restrictions on the number of new cars that can take to local streets, and many worry that more local governments will soon follow suit.

The Beijing municipal government introduced a license plate lottery in 2010. Still, Beijing faces heavy traffic, especially during rush hour and public holidays.

Beijing has just over 5 million vehicles, nearly 80 percent of which are used on a daily basis, according to Chinese media outlets. By contrast, local reports put the daily car usage rate in New York State at roughly 20 percent.

Municipal leaders have encouraged use of public transportation for years, but the fact remains that Beijing's subway and bus systems are overburdened by the city's enormous population. Compared with other major world cities such as Tokyo and London, where subway and commuter rail systems have been expanding for decades, Beijing still has a long way to go in terms of building its own infrastructure. Many of China's other large cities are even further behind. Clearly calls from administrators need to be accompanied by continued investment in public transport if the goal is to reduce dependence on private vehicles.

Meanwhile, if the government wants to encourage people to use public transportation, officials should take the lead. This will mean more than just riding the subway or a public bus once or twice while the media is watching. Officials, especially those who work in urban planning and management, should travel by public transport as often as possible in order to get a better sense of flaws in these systems.

On the roads themselves, efforts to promote order and adherence to traffic regulations will increase efficiency. Frustrated drivers in Beijing (and elsewhere) often ignore traffic signals and get into situations which block the flow of other vehicles. Similarly, traffic lights that are either too long or too short also create confusion and erratic behavior.

But while few are happy about road conditions in China's largest cities; even fewer, it seems, are satisfied with mechanisms designed to limit vehicle registrations.

In Beijing, would-be motorists have to take part in a license plate lottery before they can hit the road. Here though, the odds of winning are said to be less than 1 percent. Meanwhile, in Shanghai, winning plate bids have already exceeded 70,000 yuan ($11,283).

Such restrictions, of course, only apply to those who were not fortunate enough to become wealthy during past decades. China's first wave of rich individuals were able to buy as many cars as they wanted prior to the establishment of the abovementioned curbs. Unsurprisingly, many have complained that the up-and-coming middle-class is being forced to defer car ownership now that the roads are filled with well-to-do drivers.

In China, there are about 90 motor vehicles per 1,000 individuals, below the world average of 150 per 1,000 and far short of the average of 600 per 1,000 seen across the world's high-income nations.

This gap indicates that there is still a great deal of potential in China's auto market, especially in lower-tier cities and the countryside. Vehicle demand will only get stronger over the years ahead, and local governments cannot hope to improve traffic conditions with simple one-size-fits-all solutions.

Efforts to discourage car ownership place undue limits on the right to buy a private automobile. It seems possible that such efforts have also created trouble for domestic car brands.

Official data show Chinese car companies losing market share since last September. Considering the hurdles that come with vehicle ownership, many drivers are likely splurging on foreign cars rather than buying a domestic brand and then upgrading later. Chinese car manufacturers have themselves described this situation as a "cold winter," suggesting that purchasing restrictions contradict plans to develop the local auto sector.

Restrictions should not be seen as effective long-term solution to China's traffic woes. What the country's largest cities need is better city planning and more funding for public transportation.