A draft on measures to ease transportation pressure in Beijing was released last week.

According to reports, one of the suggested measures is particularly eye-catching: The municipal government is planning to impose new fees, like fees for licence plates on private cars.

This move, though still a draft to be considered by the city legislature, has aroused heated discussion.

Despite the billions of yuan being spent on building new expressways and ring roads every year, Beijing seems to be facing more serious traffic challenges.

Family automobiles in particular are being accused as sources of traffic jams in the city. But the frequent traffic jams are hardly caused by any single factor.

Besides the booming number of automobiles, there are many obstacles which need to be removed to reduce traffic problems, such as the need to improve the layout of roads, the under-developed network of public transportation vehicles and the less-advanced methods being used to manage transportation, just to name a few.

It is true that private cars are less efficient means of transportation, and they occupy too much of the road considering the number of people they carry.

Experiences in other cities also show that transportation improves as more people are persuaded to use public transportation.

Thus Beijing is apparently set in a dilemma: While it seems reasonable not to encourage local residents to drive their own cars, car production and sales are expected to play a more and more important role in the city's economic growth.

After all, 49.6 per cent of the rise in the total retail sales of consumer goods in Beijing during the first eight months was contributed by the growth in automobile sales.

Beijing has also listed automobile manufacturing as a pillar industry, and is establishing several automobile plants to further its economic progress.

To encourage auto consumption, Beijing is now among the domestic cities that impose the fewest limits upon car purchases.

It is under such circumstances that cars have penetrated the market with unprecedented speed.

When Beijing is trying to seek a solution to its traffic problems, there is no signal indicating it may alter its focus in economic strategy.

The obvious contradiction between the need of keeping automobile demand high and the headaches caused by traffic woes has yet to be settled.

(China Daily 09/29/2003 page4)