A breakfast cart near a subway in Beijing is discarded, with adlets pasted all over it. (Photo/Beijing Youth Daily)
(ECNS) -- All breakfast carts within Beijing's 2nd Ring Road have been removed as city administrators say the carts will totally disappear from the city in the coming years, Beijing Youth Daily reports.
A total of 263 carts were eliminated from the Dongcheng and Xicheng districts, the paper said.
According to plans adopted at a meeting on management of facilities in public spaces held in March, Beijing will develop restaurants and canteens offering convenient and healthy breakfast services to replace the carts.
Starting this year, carts stationed along the city's streets and around subway stations will be withdrawn into nearby communities.
A plan to phase out breakfast carts was also made at the meeting, with Dongcheng and Xicheng districts the first to take the lead.
The move boosted the number of customers at fast food restaurant chains such as McDonald's and Yonghe King during morning rush hours, the paper said.
Breakfast carts were rolled out 14 years ago as part of Beijing's Breakfast Project. Under the original plan, government-approved companies would provide breakfast services via carts stationed across the city to allow urban residents to buy convenient, healthy and inexpensive morning meals within a walk of no more than 10 minutes from their homes.
But due to inappropriate planning, lax management and low returns or even bad bargains, some carts were left derelict for years and others were rented out or subcontracted to small vendors, sparking worries about food quality as well as public security, the paper said, adding that the carts at times also hindered traffic.
A resident surnamed Liu, who worked near Jinrong Street, said he now faced a choice between cheap bread, sausages and milk offered at news stands or a more expensive breakfast at MacDonals, Yonghe King or Starbucks.
