Cycling in Beijing offers a glance at the people

By Harry Bhaskara

BEIJING (JP): The bicycle is still the most popular means of transportation in Beijing despite the invasion of taxis on the city's streets.

To many residents, bicycles are cost-efficient, reliable, environmentally friendly, and promote health for their riders.

"Cars are very expensive and only a few can afford them. Most of the cars in the streets are state-owned," said Maggie Shu, a Beijing resident.

Cycling in Beijing will almost let you forget that you are in one of most crowded cities in the world.

First, Beijing covers 25,000 square kilometers, or more than 20 times more area than Jakarta. Second, as a result of careful planning, the bicycle lanes are considerably wider than those in other Asian cities.

Most of the streets are divided into city blocks; so with a bike and a map one can feel the pulse of life in the city.

"We can see more and travel leisurely at our own pace," said Yap Ming Chan, a tourist from Singapore, who was surprised to learn that bikes are available for rent at the star-rated hotel where he was staying.

A bike rents for 25 Yuan (about US$3.00) per day, he said. Outside the hotel one can rent a bike for only 5 Yuan with a deposit of 200 Yuan.

In addition to a parking area for cars, the hotel also has a parking lot for bicycles with a guard on duty round the clock, Yaun said.

At a glance

Bikers in Beijing include a cross section of the urbanites. One can see the scantily clad vegetable traders, petty traders, well-dressed office workers, school children in their uniforms, husbands and wives, young lovers, the elderly, mothers and babies and even fashionable Beijing belles.

Squeezed in between are the tricycle carts used to transport various goods.

Along the willow-lined streets, other nuances of city life are revealed to the cycler, such as the simple side-street vegetable markets, the construction workers laboring well into the night and young girls quite safe biking alone after dark.

Cycling to Beijingers is almost second nature. They are so skilled at it that they often come within inches of cars or buses without incident when negotiating the busy streets.

Perhaps the most striking scene is the masses of Beijingers pedaling along seemingly unaware of each other.

A girl in a miniskirt seems to go unnoticed. A school student reads a book while cycling to school.

"They mind their own business," said In Satilah Hamzah, a tourist from Malaysia. "It is good in a way."

Unlike in Jakarta, where bicycles give way to cars, it is the buses and the cars that tolerate bicycles in Beijing.

The traffic here reflects one aspect of the life of the people, said a foreigner.

"Bicycles represent the masses. There is a kind of antagonism between bicycles and the more modern forms of transport," said an American expatriate who has lived in Beijing for more than three years.

Despite the few privately owned cars, automobiles began clogging Beijing's wide and well-paved roads about two years ago.

Motorcycles, however, are conspicuously absent. The city buses and the underground train still serve this city of 12 million people.

Rickshaws are seen only in some areas frequented by tourists.

The 1980's open economic policy has led to a boom in the number of bicycles.

According to the China's Foreign Trade magazine, the country produced 40 million bicycles last year and is the largest bicycle-producing nation in the world.

Indeed Beijing still has a chance to prevent itself from becoming another Bangkok or Jakarta by keeping the inflow of new cars at a minimum, although the ubiquitous yellow taxis, the minibuses and the sedan taxis, are poised to flood the streets.