Throwback Thursday: When Things Stayed the Same and Industrial Development Took Priority

Throwback Thursday takes a look back into Beijing's past, using our nine-year-strong blog archives as the source for a glance at the weird and wonderful of yesteryear.

In Beijing, perhaps more so than anywhere else in the world, the only constant is change. But that all changed back in November 2008, when things – for a brief moment – stayed the same.

On Nov 21, 2008, the Beijinger reported that a rumored impending cap on vehicle registrations in the city would not be put in place, after all. After considering the cap as a possible solution to rampant traffic congestion and Beijing's characteristic air pollution, the deputy head and spokesman of the commission justified the decision not to impose a limit on the grounds of a "need to maintain the long-term development of the country's auto industry and sustain general economic growth."

The mere possibility of limitations being put in place on the purchase and registration of vehicles still managed to have a strong impact on Beijing: car sales in the city spiked as Beijingers attempted to beat the introduction of the new regulations. While the rest of China's auto industry was witnessing a drop in sales across the country, the Beijing market remained strong. China Daily reported a 30 percent increase in sales at one of Beijing's biggest dealerships.

When the article was published, there were reportedly close to 3.4 million cars clogging Beijing's streets and approximately 1,200 new vehicles appearing on the road every day. As of 2011 (three years after tbj's report), there were more than 5 million. Last year, China Daily reported that authorities would implement a limit, after all: 6.3 million by 2020.

In our article, we outlined news outlets' and online communities' arguments for and against limiting new car registrations:

For the restriction:

• We all witnessed the positive change in traffic and air quality over the Olympic period, and the effects of new traffic restrictions imposed on cars was obvious.
• It takes a long time to build a perfect public transport system while the limit on car numbers can achieve the desired effect right away.
• We shouldn't sacrifice the city’s environment for the good of the world's largest auto market.
• The vehicle numbers must be limited, but it should mainly be imposed on the official government cars

Against the restriction:

• There are more vehicles on roads in cities like Tokyo, Paris, and New York than Beijing, but they don’t turn to limit on vehicle numbers to ease traffic, improving regional transportation planning is the right direction to go.
• Beijing accounts for about a tenth of all car sales in the country, and restrictions on car numbers would certainly damage the development of China’s auto industry.
• Take Shanghai for example: The private car license auction has been introduced for years but still haven’t seen any improvement in traffic as many new cars got registered in neighboring cities.

It looks like the "For" camp ultimately won out, though maybe not soon enough. Despite the fact that "Tokyo, Paris, and New York" have more vehicles than Beijing, Beijing still seems plagued today by frequent and massive traffic jams and worsening air pollution.

We're not convinced that capping the number of cars within city limits will help, either. True, there are other contributors to Beijing's traffic problems but at least local authorities have since wisened up and cracked down on pollution in other areas – kind of. This year, for example, the government announced a ban on construction through Beijing's winter months but pulled the notice only a few days after it was first published. It seems that change may still be hard to come by in some areas, after all.

Read the full article here.

Photos: info.xcar.com.cn, publicdomainpictures.net