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Biking around in Shanghai, one thing became apparent: biking in Shanghai is not as easy as it used to be. Any route remotely straight or large or convenient inevitably eventually forbade bike traffic. The best roads and all the new construction centered around cars.

Adam and I rode twenty kilometers across the city to the one bike shop in town that had a trailer. We tried taking one road after another, but always ran into the universal biking forbidden sign. The side streets were often slow and clogged.

Eventually we wound our way through back roads and reached the river, only to find that there was no bridge. Shanghai has chosen to construct tunnels instead of bridges, but none of these tunnels are passable by bike; cars or trucks only. The only way a biker can get across the river is to use one of several ferry crossings, which means waiting in line to buy a ticket, walking the bike onto the ferry, and waiting for it to fill in order to cross. Only some run all night and then only with large gaps in between service, so if you bike, you’d better be sure to stay on your own side of the river in the evening, or be prepared to bike out of your way and wait.

While Shanghai has good public transit, Shanghai’s rush to modernize by making it more convenient for cars has negatively impacted the mobility of bicyclists. This pattern reoccurs all over China. Public transit aside, cars thrust bikes into the sidelines, and city planning unquestioningly builds infrastructure for more drivers.

It is unfortunate that the new-found wealth of China contributes to its congestion. Public transit does one little good when the buses commuters use are bogged down in traffic caused by excessive car use. If China chose to control it’s car population as strictly as its human population, surely the streets would be more pleasant for all users.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 8:04 am and is filed under Jim's Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.