From Overseas Press

LA, Beijing to exchange ideas on how to reduce traffic

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-09-29 10:36

The two big cities "notorious for their choked roads are teaming up to share ideas on how to better manage traffic," said an AP article on Sep 25.

A Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority executive said that "he is working on an agreement with his counterpart in Beijing that will lead to an exchange of technical expertise and joint research projects."

Experts said that the two cities can benefit from each other while "the notion of the car capital of the world teaching China's capital how to handle traffic seems far fetched."

Randall Crane, an urban planning professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, explained that "clearly there are things to learn on both ends. Beijing planners are desperately trying to adjust to an increasingly car-oriented world, where people don't live where they work. At the same time, LA wishes it had as good of a transit infrastructure-and as many people wanting to take transit."

Beijing, "which went from having almost no private cars 15 years ago to having vehicles snarl to a crawl for most of the day, wants to know how Los Angeles copes with such problems."

Paul Taylor, deputy chief executive officer of the MTA Los Angeles said that LA "can benefit from learning about Beijing's speedy expansion of its rail transit system."

He said that during his week-long official visit in Beijing, "he was impressed by the quality of the subway service and the scale of the city's bus operation."

According to Taylor, "Beijing transportation officials were interested in how Los Angeles manages parking and carpool lanes and how it plans for future travel demands." "China is about to embark on another five-year transportation plan and it wants to learn more about the American planning process, which requires an environmental review plus public input before any transportation or development project gets approved."

Taylor said that "he left China with the impression that the country was seeking solutions so that bottlenecks don't stifle its breakneck growth."