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While it's possible to fly from Shanghai to Beijing in an hour and 40 minutes, it often takes longer than that to drive from downtown to Pudong Airport during rush hour due to the city's ubiquitous traffic jams -- a situation local authorities deem unacceptable and promise to change.
With the city's traffic expected to be worse than ever this winter -- as bad weather tends to put more cars on the road -- city officials spelled out several steps they will take to clear up local streets yesterday.
The city will add one extra train on its first subway line and light rail line today, with one extra train being added to both of the city's subway lines in February.
The extra trains mean that by February, the interval between trains should decrease from 4 minutes to 3 minutes and 20 seconds on RT No. 1, 5.5 minutes to 4 minutes 45 seconds on RT No. 2 and 9 minutes to 8 minutes on RT No.3.
Currently, about 8.5 million people commute in the city every day, but less than 1 million of them use the Metro system.
"We hope the extra Metro trains and shorter intervals can relieve the heavy traffic burden on the ground," said Liu Guilin, of the Shanghai Urban Transport Bureau.
Local cops will do their part to improve traffic by pushing drivers to handle minor accidents more quickly as of January 1.
Currently, even the smallest of fender benders can block traffic for ages as the drivers involved stand in the street pushing and screaming at one another until police finally clear up the situation.
Under the new rules, drivers will be required to get their cars out of the way within five minutes following a minor collision. The rules apply for all streets within the Outer Ring Road.
Police will also introduce a zero tolerance policy toward those that impede traffic, including jaywalkers, and drivers that park on the street.
(eastday.com December 24, 2002)
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