Cars Taking Over Roads in China

The World’s China correspondent Mary Kary Magistad talks to anchor Marco Werman about how biking in Beijing has changed as more and more cars are taking over the roads.

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Marco Werman: The World’s China correspondent Mary Kay Magistad does a lot of biking in Beijing and she’s joined us here in Boston this week. Mary Kay, if you’re to believe the pictures, Beijing at least some years ago was all about bicycles, thick with two-wheelers. What’s the bike/car ratio like these days?

Mary Kay Magistad: Well, let me start with the first time I was in Beijing in 1989 and I got on a bike. I was in the middle of this sea of hundreds of bicycles. It was a little daunting, actually, because you think, “Oh my goodness! People are so close to each other; there are gonna be accidents; how do you maneuver,” but it was kind of like a ballet. Everyone knew how to maneuver around everyone else and it was all very graceful and everyone was hyper-aware of everyone else who was around them. These days, there are hardly any bicycles in the bike lanes because it’s become the done thing. If you have the money, you get a car. If you don’t have the money to get a car, you at least get an electric moped which makes almost no noise, so when they are rushing up behind you when you’re in the bike lane it’s very unnerving.

Werman: Oh, what was that? [laughs]

Magistad: [laughs] Exactly. They go twice as fast as bicycles. You still have to be hyper-aware of it in a different way because cars will try to take over your bike lane coming from both directions. Some will be going the wrong way in your bike lane, like directly toward you. So, you just have to maneuver around obstacle courses.

Werman: You did say there are bike lanes so that’s kind of a sign of something – progress.

Magistad: Well, there are bike lanes or have been bike lanes in China for as long as I have been going into China since 1989 and before. Big bike lanes; I mean bike lanes that could fit like two lanes of traffic, of cars. Because there were so many bikes, you needed to have that much space for the bikes to flow. When I first visited China, there were hardly any cars on the streets. You had these big empty lanes where the cars were supposed to be and then the bicycle lanes were completely full. Now, it’s the opposite.

Werman: Do you find any aggression between this kind of brand new population of car drivers and people who are still riding bikes?

Magistad: Oh sure, because the way that most people make right turns is to speed up and not look. So, if you’re a bicyclist or a pedestrian and you’re trying to cross the street, you just have to be really aware of who is coming at you and know that if they are in the right lane and are going to be making a right turn…it doesn’t matter that you have a green light, what matters is you want to survive to get across the street.

Werman: For you and for most of the Chinese bicyclists you see, helmet or no helmet?

Magistad: Never a helmet.

Werman: Not you, no Chinese, nobody?

Magistad: No one wears a helmet. Bicycle traffic moves fairly slowly in Beijing. It’s not like anyone’s going 30 miles an hour; you’re going 10.

Werman: Yeah, but you can still fall down at 10 miles an hour and break your head open.

Magistad: There are accidents where people get hit by cars and so forth but, generally, as long as you are aware of your surroundings and not taking undue risks and cutting across traffic, you don’t see a lot of that happening.

Werman: Now, you indicated that if you are upwardly mobile, the second you got the money you get a car and leave your bike. Who really is riding the bikes these days? In Holland, you find bankers in Armani suits riding their bikes to work. Is that the case in China?

Magistad: So, foreigners are riding bikes, workers are riding bikes – the ones who can’t afford the cars, and just in the last year or two I’ve noticed more upper middle-class Chinese on really nice bikes. I think that’s because over two or three years – post-Olympics, there was an evolution in attitudes from, you know, “Oh, look at those quirky foreigners who are riding these beat up bicycles when they could be in a nice air-conditioned car,” and then sort of rethinking and thinking, “We’ve been sitting in the same place for half an hour and not moving. Maybe the bicycle is not such a bad thing, just a pleasant way to get around town and often the most efficient way.”

Werman: The World’s China correspondent Mary Kay Magistad, thanks a lot and enjoy the road but stay safe.

Magistad: Yes, thanks.

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