China Daily: “Capital to expand public transportation”, article 21 February.
I applaud all the efforts being made to expand the subway and bus networks. The length of subway lines is now 442 Km and at the end of this year will reach 465 Km. It is an important contribution to improve Beijing’s air. However too little attention is paid to bikers (like myself). The city is putting a total of 50,000 rental bikes on the streets but we bikers are considered second class citizens. Cars obstruct bike lanes, pedestrians love to walk in the lanes while they have all the space on the side walks (often they are smoking and talking on their mobiles, paying no attention to our warning). People have a total disregard for others, especially bikers; if we complain we get very angry remarks from car drivers and pedestrians. We can call them “the ugly Chinese” and there are lots of them.
When will police and the authorities act? Unlikely as police is nowhere to be seen and does never help us.