Comments on: Beijing Anti-Smog Restrictions a Success– Before they Begin!

By: carlisimo

carlisimo — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:56:06 +0000

nyc, capitalism means nothing more than entitling providers of capital to profits by companies working with that capital. It’s totally independent of government type, and doesn’t preclude China’s single ruling party from doing whatever it feels like. In this case, the government feels that it needs to reduce congestion, doesn’t need to make money off that, and wants everyone to have the chance to drive at least part of the week (ie not cutting all the poor drivers off – bad for the Chinese car economy, among other things).

By: Stein X Leikanger

Stein X Leikanger — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:28:47 +0000

Interesting that there’s a reference to Iran here.
Years ago, during the regime of the Shah, I was in Teheran. The major avenue cutting through the city is miles long, and dips down from a high plateau towards the city center and onwards.

Wide and multi-laned. If memory serves me there were eight lanes of traffic, and back then Iranians would individually interpret right of way rules. Iranian cars and trucks seemed to use fuel as if it was free, which it just about was. (Recently, the government has tried to increase the price of fuel, with predictable negative reactions from a public used to gasoline being cheaper than clean water.)

I was a high-schooler back then, and attended the Community High School. We would play American football against teams from the Teheran American School.

One day I was standing on the plateau, looking down the mega-boulevard. Thick, dark, belching smoke was rising from it, heated by the sun, shimmering and waving, so thick you lost sight of the end of the boulevard without resorting to a filmmakers zoom-lens to do the job.

I had an epiphany. This was going on all over the world, and there would be more of it. And in underdeveloped countries they had cheap and dirty fuel, and drove a lot of diesels, two-stroke engines and engines that were incorrectly timed. And there was no way this could go on forever.

33 years later, and it’s coming true, I guess.

By: nyc

nyc — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 12:35:12 +0000

Considering China is supposedly becoming more and more capitalist this is a huge step backwards? Why not a congestion charge?

The laws of supply and demand should sort it out.