Today we would like to talk about transportation in China.There is one subway line which opened last year and goes north and south in the city. Three more subway lines are under construction throughout the city now. It's still not really convenient to go many places by subway. So people ride bicycles, scooters, electric rickshaws, buses, taxis, and personal cars when they go places. Imagine, there are 14 million people living in the city so there are so many of those vehicles on the roads. Bicyles are more for daily transportation than recreation, as they are in America. People ride bicycles to go grocery shopping. Many of the bicycles have electric motors like scooters so you don't have to pedal. We use taxis a lot since they are convenient and cheap. The first meter starts at 8 yuan (1.3 dollars). Taxis in Chengdu are green.In America, almost every household has a car or two. But not in China. Having your own car is still a luxury. Because driving is very difficult in China, many foreign companies make their employees use Chinese drivers. We will have our own car and a Chinese driver. In China, we are not allowed to drive with and international driver's license and it's also quite a different way to drive from the States. If you don't know how to drive in the Chinese way, it's very dangerous to do so.In major cities in China, there are big concerns about air pollution. In our city, Chengdu, it's a big concern also. As an effort to reduce carbon dioxide, private cars are only able to drive 6 days a week on certain roads. The day the car is not allowed to drive is determined by the license plate.In China, cars seem to have priority on the road--not like in America or other countries. We need to be very, very careful to cross the road even if we have a green sign and we are crossing a pedestrian cross walk. The cars will not stop for pedestrians. Instead, they will beep their horns and continue driving at us! We are the ones who have to avoid being hit by cars. The most scary thing of all are the scooters and bicyles because they sometimes drive in pedestian roads and we can't hear when they are approaching from the back because of their electric motors.
Here is a photo which shows a scooter, a bicycle and a car, all
driving on a pedestrian path (sidewalk).
Here are some pictures which show the many kinds of vehicles.
It's almost an art to put so many things on a bicycle.
This man has his own shop on his rickshaw!
This is a little taxi. It can be seat two people inside.
This is Jay's school bus!
