Beijing's pros and cons

From my past 4 days visit in Beijing, I found many impressive improvements on city development, but at the same time some negative impacts that came along with it. I abbreviated the pros and cons below.

Pros:
- Great public transportation. Subway system has expanded from one west-east line (from 5 years ago) to five lines (no. 1, 2, 5, 13) and light rail. Buses are new and fuel efficient. The public transportation network is equipped with a IC smart card. Bus and subway riders simply swipe the card to get on and off. Money is deduced automatically when swiped and can be refueled at any subway station. Also, bus fare is greatly discounted when using the IC card, which costs from 0.40 RMB to 2.00 RMB one way) compared to normal pay-per-ride fare. It's very much like using debit card and makes the public transit more convenient and efficient.

- Buses are clean and environmentally friendly. Each bus is equipped with one or two mobile LCD TV, provided by China Northern Film company and China Mobile TV Corp (GAMC).

- During rush hours, every major bus stop is equipped with volunteer or non-volunteer traffic control workers. They are dressed in bright yellow uniform with red sache to navigate buses and bus riders to be in the right order.

- The city is cleaner than 5 years ago. Many streets have added recycling bins next to garbage bins to encourage recycling. Plastic bags will be banned from public places (restaurants and stores) starting from May 1.

- Construction sites are much cleaner than 5 years ago. Construction workers now receive much better pay, under the protection of "Labor law" that was passed last year. Workers who were paid under 100 RMB per month are now paid at least 800 RMB per month. This is very encouraging from perspectives of social status and political stability.


Cons:
- Traffic jam. Too many people (especially white-collars) own private vehicles. The speed at which the number of cars increases is far greater than the speed of city development.








- Crowd. People are everywhere and at anytime. This photo is taken at a subway station during morning rush hour (8:30AM). This phenomenon is so common in Beijing that people take it for granted. It's also on buses, overpass bridges, underpass links, sidewalks, shopping malls. If you want to live Beijing, you have to get used to the crowd first.






- Air quality. The sky in Beijing is always greyish white on a normal sunny day. You can spot the sun through the foggy sky, also in a greyish white color. The only time you can see blue sky is after a heavy rain that washes down all the dust in the air and the wind that blew away all the CO2 clouds.