Public should be consulted on city's restriction of private cars

The Fourth Ring Road in Beijing in a morning rush hour. City authorities are working on solutions to ease the pressures on traffic in the city. Zhuo Ensen / For China Daily

THE STATE-SPONSORED Beijing Transportation Research Center recently announced their "conclusion" that banning cars from the roads on alternate days based on odd-even license plates, something that has been implemented six times in Beijing since 2007, has eased traffic pressure. That's a shallow conclusion, says an opinion article on sznews.com:

It seems some domestic "experts" have mastered no knowledge deeper than math at the primary-school level. The conclusion of the report, obviously favoring an odd-even vehicle ban, can be simply put as the following: prohibit half of the cars from running on the roads and you will ease traffic.

It is shameless for them to boast such a conclusion as a "research achievement". It is something self-evident and known to everybody. Its spread by some media outlets can be explained by nothing but political correctness, namely echoing the rumor that the authorities intend to implement the odd-even formula permanently.

These so-called experts must know, but they won't tell you the negative effects of an odd-even number ban. The subway is almost twice as crowded as other days, and long queues form at every bus station. People have to wait for hours before they find a bus that has enough space for another passenger.

Besides, the odd-even number formula is unfair to vehicle-owners because it means car owners are paying the same price only to get something they can only use half the year. Worse, the tax and other charges will not be cut even though people will have to use their cards less.

Of course, none of this constitutes trouble for decision-making officials because they do not take the subway.

All this is not to say that an odd-even number formula is necessarily evil. Residents in Beijing have been long been troubled by traffic jams and they may choose to give up some usage of their cars in exchange for less congestion.

The problem is, an odd-even formula affects the public's interests and so it needs to be discussed with the public first.

The BTRC's recent praising of the odd-even number formula and some media outlets' immediate echoing of it imply there is possibility the traffic authorities could implement the formula amid public opposition. It is time for the public to put some pressure on the authorities, so as to defend the public's rights and interests.