Chinanews, Guangzhou, Nov. 14 – Information from the Guangzhou Information Institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences shows that in Guangzhou, traffic jams resulting from human factors cause local people a waste of 150 million hours every year and a loss of 11.7 billion yuan worth of the city’s total output value, or 7 percentage points of the city’s GDP figure.

 

The Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference has published a set of data showing that over the past three years, the average speed for the city's automobiles has declined year on year. During rush hours, the average speed for automobiles in the city has falled to 23.6 km per hour, and in the city’s old downtown areas, the automobile average speed on the main lanes has fallen to 17.3 km per hour. On Dongfeng Road, a major thoroughfare in downtown area, the automobile average speed once raised by 10 km per hour after the municipal government banned motorcycles on the road; however, the automobile average speed on Dongfeng Road now has slowed down to 25-30 km per hour. The number of locations where traffic jams occur has climbed year on year.

 

Related investigations show that most local residents attribute the city’s heavy traffic jams to the inappropriate road designs and irregularities by some privileged cars. In addition, they say that traffic police have not fulfilled their duties very well, punishing traffic violators only by imposing fines.