More and more people across Beijing are choosing to ride bicycles
Hundreds of blue, green and yellow bicycles can be seen parked outside metro stations
These shareable bicycles, belonging to three different private companies, have made cycling hassle-free and popular.
One can unlock a bicycle by scanning a QR code using a mobile app, ride it and park it at a different stand and pay using the same app.
The popularity of cycling is not only because of bicycle-sharing but also due to the infrastructure provided for cyclists. In the capital Beijing, there are separate bicycle lanes in most parts of the city.
The government has built a 6.5-km dedicated three-lane bicycle track, which is 6 metres wide, in the northwest part of the city
About 3 km of this is an elevated bicycle lane that runs over the main roads.
The sight of cyclists ruling the roads in cities and towns in China over the years is not unusual, though. China was often recognized as the ‘Kingdom of Bicycles’. But in the early 1990s, the number of buses on the roads increased and in the later half of the 1990s, people started buying more cars.
However, people’s mindset towards cycling also started changing and since the Covid pandemic, more people have taken up cycling. Bicycles are also part of President Xi Jinping’s “Healthy China 2030” policy.
Read the full report here: https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/bicycle-sharing-infrastructure-make-cycling-a-popular-choice-in-china/article68266770.ece
Report and visuals: Nikhil M Babu
Production: Gayatri Menon
Voiceover: Jude Weston
