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| Beijing is partnering with a German public-benefit organization to study TDM strategies. |
We all get by with a little help from our friends. When
Beijing set out to reduce its VMT and auto emissions, it began working with a
new partner with some expertise in the field and a fresh point of view.
The (Chinese) Federal Ministry for the Environment,
Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and the Beijing Municipal
Commission for Transportation (BMCT) agreed to have their own Beijing Transport
Research Center (BTRC) collaborate with the German Society for International Cooperation (Deutsche Gesellschaft
für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, or GIZ), to work on the Beijing
Transportation Demand Management project [1].
The partnership with GIZ is an
interesting choice. The GIZ, an
organization that operates on behalf of the German Federal Government, aims to
support developing countries in resource management and sustainable development
and purportedly works on a public benefit basis. While its work may be done for the public
benefit, the GIZ is typically hired as a client by a state agency like the
BMU. Their services include things like
organizing forums, producing studies and reports, designing training and
education, and managing funds for efforts related to sustainability and
development projects. The German Government
supports the GIZ as a means of influencing the course of Third World
development, stating that “ global challenges
such as combating climate change, structuring international trade and achieving
international development goals can only be tackled successfully in partnership
with these countries [2].”
In the case of their partnership with
Beijing, the GIZ’s interest lies in the tremendous impact that a city of 20
million new car drivers can inflict on global greenhouse gas emissions (and
thus climate change). The stated purpose
of the Beijing TDM project is to “build capacities and competencies to enable
Beijing municipal authorities to quantify and model the impact of TDM
strategies.” More simply put, the
project is investigating various TDM strategies in a Beijing context to find
ones that would be the most effective at reducing auto emissions.
Together, the BTRC and the GIZ have
released their first report entitled “Transportation
Demand Management in Beijing: Work in Progress.” It’s a surprisingly good read for a TDM
report – the sections on China’s pre-car history and the influence of the 2008
Olympic Games on city policies would be as interesting to anyone with an
interest in international affairs as to a transportation wonk. The report goes on to catalog Beijing
transportation policies in chronological order, current conditions fostered by
those policies, and projections for future if those conditions stay static [3].
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| The cover of the Beijing TDM project's first report. |
But couldn’t the government of
Beijing have undertaken this investigation on its own? What value does collaboration with a German organization
bring to the table?
The answer is simple: the GIZ brings
an outside perspective. This
organization is internationally respected and represents a partnership with a
powerful Western economic ally. The GIZ
is therefor able to make challenging statements that internal Beijing
government workers cannot. A good friend
will tell you things you don’t want to hear, and in the conclusions of the Work
in Progress report the GIZ does just that.
Beijing has long celebrated car culture as a celebration of China’s
newfound prosperity while ignoring the serious repercussions. The GIZ, in its report to the Chinese
government agencies, flatly calls out not only the obvious traffic congestion
and environmental impacts but also the deep
social inequity of the current system, the financial burden to the citizens, and the degradation of the quality of life throughout the city that is
trademark of the status quo. Its
recommendations and justifications for new TDM strategies will be based on
targeting all of these issues.
It’s hard to ignore statements like
these from your international friend and ally.
Beyond insights on BRT, bike sharing systems, or congestion pricing,
that’s the true value of this TDM partnership: the tough love that can help Beijing
look realistically at its current situation and look to the future with a
global perspective.
Sources:
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