"BEIJING, China--As I look out of my hotel room window on my first full day here, it is hard to tell where the clouds end and the haze of pollution begins. Smog, which worsens as the day progresses, obscures the Jundu and Xishan mountains ringing the city as well as the many monuments and landmark buildings in town.
China has spent nearly $17 billion (120 billion yuan) since 2001 to clean its capital city's notoriously dirty air, but the atmosphere is still filled with car and truck exhaust as well as the dust from innumerable construction sites and the smoke belched by coal-fired industrial and power facilities.
During various taxi rides through this sprawling and massive metropolis, I notice that none of the cars sharing the road--Volkswagens, Buicks, Chevys and Hyundais, to name a few of the makes--appear to be more than a few years old. The main arteries in town are jam-packed with vehicles day and night, and traffic continues to worsen as members of the growing Chinese middle class purchase their first cars, according to longtime resident Timothy Hui, program manager of the Beijing office of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an international environmental group.
"There are too many people driving," a taxi driver, who declined to be identified by name, told me through a translator. "The only cars that should be allowed on the road are taxicabs and public transportation. Everyone wants to drive." Although taxis are relatively cheap in Beijing--it costs about $10 (70 yuan) plus toll for the 28 mile (45 kilometer) ride from the airport to downtown--purchasing a car is viewed as a major sign of arrival in the middle class.
Still, my driver may soon get his wish--at least temporarily. The city plans to close at least 144 of its nearly 1,500 gas stations and ban cars without appropriate license plates from the roads during the Olympics set to be held here from August 8 to 24. During a test run last year, the city eliminated 1.3 million cars from the road for four days, which resulted in a drop of more than 5,800 metric tons of air pollutants, according to the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau. As part of its effort to cleanse the Olympic air, the officials also to close or move factories to the suburbs, ban the burning of stubble in surrounding agricultural fields, and suspend all construction beginning July 1."
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