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Expat's Eye
Print Edition> Expat's Eye
UPDATED: April 13, 2009 NO. 15 APR. 16, 2009
Footpath Perils
The menace of drivers on sidewalks
By GOU FU MAO
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One of the things that drives me nuts about China is parking on footpaths. I nearly got knocked down recently on what will be my last visit to the historic old Maizidian Street. Here the local government spent a fortune of people's money on repairing and replacing footpaths with nice black-grey bricks. They've been terrific in restoring an air of antiquity to the street. All the more pity that Beijingers can't walk on these paths because the minority of locals who drive park cars park on the space built for everyone to use. Pedestrians--the majority of Beijingers who don't own a car--have to live dangerously and walk out on the street, to lots of hooting and dodging by the cars that control that space too. The year-old footpaths meanwhile have been busted and cracked by cars, for which they were not built.

Just to check that I'm not alone on this, I did a Google search on "parking on footpaths," which yielded articles, gripes and notices from pedestrians, governments and police authorities from Britain to the United States to New Zealand and India. You can't park on footpaths because it's unsafe, it's dangerous to wheelchair users, and it damages footpaths. "Footpaths are not built to take the weight of a car," warned a municipal website in Newcastle, Britain.

I feel particularly sorry for Beijing's blind people: the textured center of most local footpaths serves as a guiding path for them after all, but parked cars block their way. Rules posted on its website by the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau tell car drivers: "Blind tracks shall, according to plan, be paved on the sidewalks along the main streets in cities." While the appropriate paving is applied, what's a blind Beijinger to do when several tons of four-wheel drive is parked on the passage?

Precisely because it's a menace to public safety, cities around the world deal with footpath-parkers by banning, fining and clamping. The latter is a moneymaker for the private companies authorized by city authorities and police in several European states to patrol the streets. On finding offending cars, they slap a big yellow brace on the back wheels, an impediment that costs 80 euros (about 750 yuan) to remove. It creates jobs and smartens up the city streets.

Local businesses are also liberal in their requisitioning of public footpath space. Patrons of the busiest restaurants near my home have requisitioned and then smashed the footpath. The bike stands nailed into the footpath outside the local KFC are a great idea until you try to park or retrieve your bike: cars park in front or across them. Here's what the Beijing traffic department says about parking in front of restaurants: "In places where public buildings, commercial districts, residential districts, and large (or medium-sized) buildings are constructed, rebuilt or expanded, parking lots shall be constructed or increased to go with them; where parking berths are not enough, the parking lots shall be rebuilt or expanded in a timely manner."

It's pointless to build a bike rack for 10 locals if a single car-driving customer can render it useless. Local traffic rules state that parking will only be allowed if "passage of the pedestrians and vehicles are not impeded..."

Car drivers--the minority of local citizens-have long been dictating the use of local public space. Lately I've seen a sign banning bikes plastered at the entrance of the Lufthansa Center. A sign indeed that bikes aren't welcome--but you can drive all you like. If Beijing wanted to cut out the choking car fumes, it would stick parking fines on each of those cars that park on footpaths and then build more bike racks. Somehow I'm not optimistic.

This is a serious health and safety issue. I talked to a cross section of Beijingers recently and most seemed to be resigned to walking out on the street instead of the footpath provided for them. An American-Chinese 30-something who grew up here gives me more hope. They'll start fining people. Fifty years ago in Europe people were doing the same things, but they started fining them, and now they don't. It takes time." He points to an increasing willingness of local traffic cops to stop and fine motorists. A new steeliness is badly needed-who wants to get run over while walking on a city footpath?

In the west of the city it's not a problem. I know because I frequently run from the central business district to the military museum and back. It's all clear running and pedestrian traffic only all the way down Chang'an Avenue, past landmark government buildings. Similarly, bollards have been placed in the way of cars trying to park outside diplomatic missions. Can't these standards be extended to every Beijing thoroughfare, as has long been the case in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Macao? Such a project would create jobs, and make pedestrianism a lot safer in Beijing.

The writer is an Irishman and lives in Beijing



 
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