Enlightening article

Comment on Raymond Zhou's column "Exporters between rock and hard place" (China Daily, September 29)

Your article makes good sense and is very indicative of the business of economics. I have often seen where companies look the other way on quality - especially in the software arena. "What's a few bugs in software here and there ?" I guess it depends on whether software is keeping someone's pacemaker operational, or checks for gas leaks?

Unfortunately, it is probably to be expected that China, who makes so much of what people around the world touch, use and consume every day, will be targeted because we are all learning how close we all are to China - and how close China is to us. China is the biggest of the biggest this generation will encounter, hence until we all get comfortable - and more importantly - get educated and enlightened about China, we'll likely see more of these "negative" stories in the press. The good news is, people like you are out there writing about reality, putting things in perspective. Thank you for this.

Brenda Hall

via e-mail

Some people would buy the label "China-free", others would shun it. China has more friends in the West than you think; they just don't raise their voice. Keep on with the good work, Raymond.

Huaqiao

on China Daily website

Beijing traffic

Comments on Li Xing's column "No shortcuts to smooth traffic flows" (China Daily, September 27)

While waiting in a bus in your great Olympic city for the traffic to release us from the gridlock can I suggest to your very active and successful mayor that he should create bus lanes like we do in Brisbane, Australia (population 1.5m).

It is the second city in the world to brilliantly do so. In just two years traffic congestion has decreased 20 per cent. Just what you need for next year for the Olympics.

With your major roads so wide i.e. 3 to 7 lane roads all you need to do is just make one lane for "buses only" by painting the right hand road lane in another color. When cars enter this lane (excepting when turning a corner) they get fined.

James A Delahunty

Guilin

There is a vast difference between occasional traffic jams (like those in most world cities) and Beijing's du che every single day.

A rule of thumb to remember for successful world cities is "one subway line for every million people". Paris, London, New York, and Sydney, all conform to this rule, and they all have well-managed traffic.

Beijing currently has five lines for 20 million. This is so far below what is required, that it brings into question the planning capabilities of the city and national government.

Also, public transport is heavily used in every single major Australian city. No system is perfect, but even on the worst traffic day ever in Sydney (in 1998 - the Parramatta Road/Pacific Highway accident people were an hour late on average.

An hour late on average sounds like a typical Monday morning in Beijing.

Wang

on China Daily website

Your Aussie colleague ought to have told you that we have tried all of the easy solutions in Sydney already. We still have roads like parking lots.

People are not going to take public transport. The more China develops, the more Chinese will demand the freedom to drive themselves. The freedom to go where they want, when they want, and most especially: with whom they want.

That is the key to it: Public transport is preferable only to walking. As soon as people have the option of not sharing their personal space with people they do not know, they will demand it.

So we need to make the roads work. The first thing you can do to help is to prevent vehicles from stopping on the street. If you do that properly, you double the capacity of almost any road.

That means buildings along the road must provide off-street parking. Since that is expensive, they will do so only once you prevent vehicles stopping outside.

Once you get the roads working, then you have to solve vehicle pollution. China is ahead of Australia in putting electric vehicles on the road, so we do not have anything to teach you about those.

But we can tell you that people will never choose public transport over their own car. Their personal freedom is what they want. If you ignore that fact, you will end up spending a lot on public transport that people do not use. Just like we did.

John McGhie

on China Daily website

(China Daily 10/09/2007 page11)