Another nugget of fun from People’s Daily:

Beijing is confident it can reduce traffic by 20 to 30 percent during next year’s Olympics, a senior official said yesterday.

Liu Xiaoming, deputy head of the Beijing municipal committee of communications, said that despite having a reputation for heavy traffic, it was the city’s aim to ensure locals, visitors and competitors enjoyed a congestion-free Games.

He said authorities will continue to promote the use of public transport in a bid to keep the volume of traffic to a minimum.

Liu said that all competitors and their families, volunteers, employees and spectators will be provided with free public transport during the Games. A special bus network linking all Olympic venues and training centers would also be introduced to make getting to events as easy by bus as it would be by private vehicle.

For the last few years, I’ve been looking forward to the Olympics.  There are several reasons for this, including civic improvements here in Beijing.  Public transportation has certainly been one of these. However, as this article points out, Plan B for reducing traffic congestion is to artificially reduce the number of cars on the road during the Olympics, and then when the games are over, the roads will be horribly congested once again.

I’m a little disappointed, but not all that surprised.  Back in 1984, when I was living in Los Angeles, I had the pleasure of experiencing the Summer games.  The city government, in all its wisdom, had the great idea to round up all the homeless people and put them in a makeshift tent city outside of town for the duration of the festivities.  After the games were over, they were set loose.  Great stuff.  On the other hand, the city looked pretty good, and I believe it was the first year that the Olympic Games was actually profitable for a city.

Not that I’m saying Beijing will do anything like LA did, but you never know. I’m sure things will look pristine and sparkling, with traffic zipping along with nary a delay.