PRE-DIPLOMA REPORT

Urban Cycling Resurrection BEIJING, CHINA

QING LU

AHO Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Institute of Landscape and Urbanism

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AHO SPRING SEMESTER 2016

URBAN CYCLING RESURRECTION PRE-DIPLOMA REPORT Author: Qing Lu Course Director: Sabine M端ller Supervisors: Sabine M端ller Bendik Manum AHO Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Institute of Landscape and Urbanism Oslo, April 2016 All material including photographs and maps, unless otherwise stated, is by the author

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 INTRO 07

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Preface Motivation

Abstract

Topic Description

CHAPTER 2 THE SITE 13

Site Introduction

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Climate

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Geography

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Transportation

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Site Analyse

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Urban Street Network

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Street Spatiality

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Urban Expansion

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Traffic Congestion Potential

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Compact City Potential

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Nature Structure Potential

CHAPTER 3

REVIEWED MATERIAL

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Literature

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Reference Projects

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Interviews

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REFERENCES

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PREFACE Motivation

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Once, as the capital of China, Beijing was a place with lots of cyclists. The memories of my first time visiting Beijing have already became very vague. Back then, in 1998, one of the very few images I could recall was the crowed cyclists passing through the crossroads. At that moment, my mind was so impacted by that spectacular amounts of bicycles I did not even notice that if there were any other kinds of vehicles occupying the road.

In contrast to my hometown Dalian, a city with a topography of mountains and hills, Beijing is rather flat and even. I suppose that was one of the biggest advantages and preconditions Beijing had as a bicycle city back then. Riding a bike just worked well for citizens in spite of lacking of proper cycle infrastructure at that time.

Ironically, nowadays with the whole world seeking the way of building for urban cycling, Beijing has completely lost sight of the bicycle as transport since the advent of the car culture. This grand city has fell into an awkward circumstance with serious congestion and air pollution.

With the city expanding and population growing, there comes another problem – the decay of public space. Along with the rapid construction and development of Beijing in recent years, it seems that planners have put all the energies into fixing the existing functional issues so that roads including pavements in the role of the most important public space

for urban ignored.

life

have

been

basically

“Man is man’s greatest joy.” How could a city be called city without proper public space that generating a secure and comfort urban environment? One said:” If you create more roads, there comes more traffic. If you create more space, there comes more human activities.” A welcoming design that prioritizes cyclists and pedestrians would, at least as a starting point, make more people want to take the bike instead of the car.

And this will generate a much better urban environment. Less cars, less congestion, and more health. For the benefit of all road users.

I did a relevant semester project on this topic before. It was a project based in Oslo surrounding the Botanical Garden.

My strategy was merging the area using routes modified especially for pedestrians and cyclists as linkage to make the district become a place for city life and stay. For my diploma project, I would like to go farther on the bicycle transportation topic based on my previous knowledge and experience.

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ABSTRACT Topic Description

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IMAGE BY BLOOMBERG

Jan. 15, 2013

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Not long ago, in the 80s and the 90s, China was known as the bicycle country.

Especially Beijing, the capital of China. In recent years, with social and economical changes, the number of private cars has surged rapidly. The proportion of bike trips in Beijing declined from 62.7％ in 1986 to 18.1％ by the end of 2009. Consequently, with the growth of population, Beijing became very congested with serious problems of air and noise pollution.

A change within urban mobility seems inevitable at present. Currently 44％ of the daily vehicle trip distance in Beijing is less than 5 km, which is an opportunity to shift transportation to bike trips. The image of the bicycle is still ingrained as a vehicle that the old China was using to move around. There are a lot of people who still believe in the idea of riding a bike around the city, but very few are prepared to go out there and just do it because currently cycling is still be labeled as indignity and it is risky to cycle under the serious polluted air condition.

Beijing has got both the realistic demand and the potential to reclaim this bicycle culture heritage and bridge the old and the new city to once again position itself in sustainable urban transformation.

The underlying problems of the case and the hypothesis of solutions by means of design are as follows:

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1. How to break the vicious circle of polluted air and outdoor cycling? Can it be solved by channeling better air corridors between urban and suburb area and creating a better microclimate for cycling?

2. Can the canopied old city profile be recovered by modern strategies based on research of the old city road system and the urban expanding process?

3. How to insert a logical and continuous bicycle network within the car-based traffic structure in urban area by minimal means? Can it be achieved by following the existing highways?

4. How to make sure the bicycle as the fastest, but maybe not the shortest way from A to B during rush hours? Can cycle superhighway works in this case?

5. Could it help to make long-distance bike trips enjoyable for cyclists by following the existing water and green structure and by improving street life?

6. How to deal with the existing conflicts among walking, biking and driving to make it safe for all road users? Can it be solved by placing cycle routes in streets parallel to main arteries, on the other side, by putting ‘barriers’ between different flows?

This topic of urban cycling under polluted environment reality can contribute in regard of solutions for not only Beijing but also other cities suffering similar environmental issues. It is about negotiating different road users’ requirements within limited urban space. And this is a design task that designers should take on. It is not only about mobility questions, multiple aspects have to be brought into the case. Urban texture, public space, urban climate, pollution management for instance.

To approach the topic, the possible outcomes of the design project are: 1. A timeline in regard of the multi phases for solving air pollution.

repair shops, parking space.

8. Scenario chart generating a consistent bike trip for both long and short distance.

9. Perspectives researching street life, bicycle trip landscape view etc.

The guidelines of the Dutch requirements for cycle infrastructures (consistency, directness, attractiveness, road safety, comfort, spatial integration, experience, and socio economic valve), the compact city methodology, and the multiscale and integral design method will be used during the design process.

2. Feasibility study (mappings of existing infrastructure, streets and public spaces, density, accessible density, accessibility of daily destinations etc.)

3. Conceptual diagram generating the logic of the cycle infrastructure.

4. Network plan of bike routes on urban scale.

5. Profile level plan of specific area design.

6. Street sections showing relationship between different road users and different solutions in different circumstances.

7. Bike infrastructures plan showing

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THE SITE

Beijing, China

Site Introduction Coordinates: 39°N, 116°E Ring 2

Area: Municipality 16,410.54 km² Urban 1,368.32 km² Population (2014): Municipality 21,516,000 Urban 18,590,000 Overview: Beijing is the capital of China. It is the second largest Chinese city by urban population after Shanghai and is the nation's political, cultural and educational center.

It is a major hub for the national highway, expressway, railway, and high-speed rail networks.

Administrative Divisions: Inner city (inside Ring 2) Urban area (between Ring 2 and Ring 5) Inner suburbs (linked by Ring 6) Outer suburbs (areas within city limits)

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Climate Beijing has four clearly distinct seasons characterized by windy, dusty springs, sultry, rainy summers, sunny, dry autumns and cold, dry, windy winters.

80% of the annual rainfall concentrates in June, July and August in summer, while it is quite dry during the other seasons. The dry ground surface leads to very serious sand duststorm problem. And the situation is becoming worse in recent years because of a large amount of carbon dust in vehicle exhaust. Vegetation cover is the most essential solution in this matter.

Geography Overall, the terrain of Beijing region is higher in the northwest and lower in the southeast. The urban area of Beijing is rather flat, which is an advantage for cycling on topography level.

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S11 Jingcheng Highway

G6 Badaling Highway

S12 Airport Highway

Ring 5

G103 Jingtong Highway

Ring 2

G1 Jingshen Highway

G2 Jingtang Highway G4 Jingshi Highway 0 G45 Jingkai Highway

20 km

BEIJING REGION AND THE EXISTING TRAFFIC ARTERIES

Transportation

Roads Beijing's urban transport is dependent upon the five "ring roads" that concentrically surround the city, with the Forbidden City area marked as the geographical center for the ring roads. The ring roads appear more rectangular than ring-shaped.

Within the urban core, city streets generally follow the checkerboard pattern of the ancient capital. Traffic jams are a major concern. Even outside of rush hour, several roads still remain clogged with traffic.

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Metros The Beijing Subway, which began operating in 1969, now has 18 lines, 319 stations, and 527 km of track, and is still under expanding construction rapidly.

Buses There are nearly 1,000 public bus and trolleybus lines in the city, including four bus rapid transit lines.

Bicycles Beijing has long been well known for the number of bicycles on its streets.

Although the rise of motor traffic has

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PM 2.5 CONCENTRATION DISTRIBUTION OF BEIJING

created a great deal of congestion and bicycle use has declined, bicycles are still an important form of local transportation. Large numbers of cyclists can be seen on most roads in the city, and most of the main roads have dedicated bicycle lanes. However, bicycle lanes are often been occupied by car parking and the serious hazy weather has become a major concern for cyclists.

On the other hand, the rise of electric bicycles and electric scooters, which have similar speeds and use the same cycle lanes, may have brought about a revival

in bicycle speed transport. Now E-bike makes it possible to cycle to most parts of the city. But some people definitely feel less safe when it comes to this mix use of cycle lanes.

Because of the growing traffic congestion, the authorities have indicated more than once that they wish to encourage cycling, but it is not clear whether there is sufficient will to translate that into action on a significant scale.

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THE SITE Site Analyse

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01 Urban Street Network

The old Beijing was an axial symmetrical city with two main roads through north and south, four main roads through west and east, with the Imperial Palace at the centre.

In 1949, the urban area of Beijing was only 62.5 km², with a radius length within 5 km, which was very suitable distance for biking to everywhere.

1912 1419 d=

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STREET NETWORK OF BEIJING 1914

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1997

1970s

2011 1987 1950-1958

1980

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1959.10

TIMELINE OF THE ROAD CHANGE

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STREET NETWORK OF BEIJING 2013

The urban area grows rapidly ever since, and has reached a number of 1,368.32 km² by now.

On network level, it is rectangular ring roads system that concentrically surround the old city heritage with radial pattern highways network connecting urban and suburb area.

On street level, the change is more thoroughly. The scale of the street has changed from cyclists and pedestrians dominant to motor vehicle dominant. Streets become hard to walk and bike through.

According to the data, the average commuting time in Beijing now is 97 minutes, and the distance is 19.2 km. The urban radius length within Ring 5 is about 20 km, but the primary challenge here for cycling in Beijing is not about distance, since 10 km’s bike trip seems quite acceptable for most locals.

The challenge is more concerning to the radical change of the urban fabric.

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Natural Ground Cover

Cycle as Priority

Tree Canopy

50% Motorway

65% Pedestrian

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Impervious Cover

Motor Vehicle as Priority

Shrub as Barrier

80% Motorway

14% Pedestrian

1964 2004 Dongzhimen Moat

1958 2004 Jianguomen Inner Avenue

1961 2004 Zhushikou East Avenue

1956 2004 Dongsi West Avenue

1961 2004 Xizhimen Inner Avenue

02 Street Spatiality

DONGZHIMEN

XIZHIMEN

DONGSI JIANGUOMEN

ZHUSHIKOU

BEIJING OLD CITY STREETS SPACE COMPARISON

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BEIJING STREET SURVEY PLAN

The existing main roads in old city texture are mainly occupied by motor vehicles. But the grid plan form offers an opportunity to place cycle routes in more quiet and less chaos streets parallel to the main arteries. The existing possible parallel routes are not consistent though.

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0

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Year: 1982 Population: 9.2 Million

Year: 1991 Population: 10.8 Million

Year: 2001 Population: 13.6 Million

TWO DIFFERENT URBAN FORMS

Clustered Form Beijing

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Dispersed Form

03 Urban Expansion The urban is spreading out along with the concentric ring roads centring the old city. The Second Ring Road traces the old city walls and the Sixth Ring Road connects satellite towns in the surrounding suburbs.

Beijing’s clustered urban form has the advantage of a higher resource usage.

But it also rises the population and pollution pressure.

Ring + Radial Roads Subways 0

Year: 2012 Population: 20.7 Million

20 km

BEIJING URBAN EXPANSION

TWO DIFFERENT URBAN EXPENTION STRUCTURES

Mono-centred Structure Beijing

Multi-centred Structure Tokyo

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TRAFFIC CONGESTION DISTRIBUTION

04 Traffic Congestion Potential The congesting roads and 4 worst congesting nodes illustrates the weak links during the daily commuting.

When comes to the potential for traffic congestion related, those most heavily burdened roads need to be considered primarily in relate to reality and the efficiency of the result.

Dinghui Bridge Area

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Beiyuan Road Area

Guomao Commercial District

Wanyuan Road Area

Congesting Roads Congesting Nodes 0

10 km

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RESIDENCE AND OCCUPATION DISTRIBUTION

05 Compact City Potential Not like the historical inner city area, the urban area between Ring 2 and Ring 5 actually has the compact city potential, which means a mixed functional foundation is developing currently. The commuting pattern here is no longer following the concentrically ring road structure, and the distance between home and daily approach such as schools, offices is actually possible for riding.

Ring 4 13.4 %

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Ring 2 6.9 %

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Occupation Residence 0

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Badaling Highway

EXISTING GREEN AND WATER STRUCTURE

06 Nature Structure Potential There are different methodologies applying for different biking trips. Commuting cycling, both for long and short distance, is one kind. Weekend pleasurable cycling is another, which could reach a longer distance but also ask for a better experience during cycling. The Yongding River existing urban nature structure offers an opportunity for the potential location in this matter.

Olympic Forest Park Old Summer Palace

Summer Palace

Beihai Park

Yuyuantan Park

Garden Expo

Niantan Park

Jingshi Highway

Jingkai Highway

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Jingcheng Highway

Chaobai River

Airport Highway

Chaoyang Park

Jingtong Highway

Grand Canal Park Tiantan Park

North Canal River

Jingshen Highway

Jingtang Highway

Water Green 0

10 km

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REVIEWED MATERIAL Literature

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Cycle Infrastructure

by Stefan Bendiks, Aglae Degros / 2013 The authors of this book are Stefan Bendiks and AglaĂŠe Degros, who are the founders of Artgineering, a practice for research and design on the boundary between urban planning and infrastructure based in Rotterdam.

The book is structured mainly by three parts, beginning with showing 10 practice cycle routes based in Europe and North America, via interviews of some of those who directly involved with the conception and realization of the routes, concluding with showing 23 innovations that envisage what’s next in the future.

Consistency, directness, attractiveness, road safety, comfort, spatial integration, user experience and socio-economic value - the authors propose this 5+3 Criteria for cycle infrastructures based on the Dutch requirements formulated by the Crow Institute and use it throughout the book to characterize and position the routes and innovations.

The concept pointed out by the authors of activating the full potential of cycling for the urban landscape and considering cycling infrastructure as an integral design challenge, rather than purely an issue of traffic engineering is very inspiring. And I believe in using this 5+3 Criteria as guideline and touchstone for my project - Resurrection of Urban Cycling in Beijing.

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Remaking China's Great Cities: Space and Culture in Urban Housing, Renewal, and Expansion

by Samuel Y. Liang / 2014

The author of the book, Samuel Y. Liang is Associate Professor of Humanities and Coordinator of Chinese Studies at Utah Valley University, USA. This book focuses on the subject of China’s urban transformations based on three first-tier cities: Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. It is a study of China’s urban development trajectories from historical perspective and constructed by three parts.

Part I is titled as Planning and expansion. Here the author offers an overview of the urban planning and territorial expansion of the great cities since 1949. Part II is titled as Housing and culture, in which shows the examination of the production and consumption of urban housing and its social and cultural implications. Part III is titled as Renewal and conservation. Samuel Liang considers today the distinct urban heritages from the imperial and colonial eras are lost over the past six decades’ tremendous changes. He examines the state-led reconstruction and redevelopment of the cities’ old urban cores, dilapidated residential neighborhoods and the urban conservation movement.

With well-illustrated case studies, this book offers a comprehensive knowledge of Beijing’s expanding process from 1949 till very recent. And it could offer historical arguments in order to help me explore my project in the view of Beijing’s historical urban fabric and street profiles. Ultimately this could lead me to find out a reasonable solution to revive the street life and community.

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Air Quality at Street-level: Strategies for Urban Design

by Anne Whiston Spirn / 1986

Anne Whiston Spirn is an American landscape architect, photographer and author. Her major work is about community-oriented spaces that are functional, sustainable and artful at the same time.

This book is a study about air pollution at street-level emphasizing on the contribution of urban design to air quality management. It offers an accurate vision of the considerable variation along the street. Using very simple but accurate hand-drawing diagrams, the author makes it very easy to understand how different elements effect the street air quality, how the air flows, and eventually, what are the possible solutions in different circumstances.

The book is from 30 years ago. But the principles and strategies offered in the book apply for today’s urban condition regardless. Strategies of both reducing the pollution on street-level, and avoiding exposure by studying the air flowing way can be applied to my topic of Beijing’s air pollution management perfectly. The first step is to find the least exposure location, and the second is to reduce the pollution by means at street-level, in order to make the condition at least better than the surroundings.

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REVIEWED MATERIAL Reference Projects

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REVIEWED MATERIAL Interviews

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Bendik Manum

-What do you think about cars when comes to the sustainable development?

You must make it easier to manage without the car. And that depends on at least 3 things.

You have to make other transport more easy, comfortable, cheap. And you have to put restrictions on driving cars. And then you must stop making urban development that is car based.

-Do you think there is anything China can learn from European countries?

What can be learnt is the priority. Giving priority to bicycling is effective. So you can see in Denmark and Netherlands, giving priority to bicycle works. You can get the city, the society work with less car driving.

-What do you think can be done in existing city? Can Beijing be reformed for biking?

Existing cities developed and designed before the car became dominant, those cities are quite easy to make more friendly towards walking and biking. For instance, Barcelona, is very easy to make into a bicycle city. Whereas cities or part of the city developed after the Second World War are far more difficult.

-Is there any common principle that you follow when you design for bicycle networks?

First, I’m not doing actually design myself but I’m working in proving proposal. One thing important is that it’s not one single layout principle. Bicycling is very flexible including all kind of layouts. So the important thing is to provide continuous network that is convenient and safe.

-Do you have any advice to give for urban cycling in Beijing consider of the pollution situation?

The problem in Beijing might be that the air is so polluted that it is more dangerous to bicycle than to drive car. And of course that’s the major problem. Well the answer is the general one that you have to make it more difficult to drive cars and easier to go by bike.

But that is also very political. With this large amount of car traffic, you have to restrict the car, in one way or another, you can’t solve it simply by putting conditions for bicycling.

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Bin Li -Do you ride a bike often when you are in Beijing? Why? Yes. I don’t know how to drive actually. There is a certain distance between my home and the nearest subway station. Quite suitable by bike. And I normally don’t take bus because its lack of punctuality. So, my routine would be like biking from home to subway station, parking my bike at the bicycle parking lot there, and then taking subway to my daily destinations.

-As a local resident, could you tell me about the change of biking in Beijing in the last two decades?

Beijing used to be a bicycle friendly city for sure. But this character has been fading away all the way. Lots of bikeways are occupied as parking space, especially the last 5 years.

There used to be a large amount of middle school students riding bikes. When I was in high school, I rode 10 km everyday. That’s the distance between my home and school.

It usually took me about 45 minutes. It’s not the fastest way but I preferred to ride a bike.

Because subway was not an option at that time, and buses were usually super full and unpredictable.

-What are the reasons for the decay of biking?

First of all, private car. The number of it has been growing very fast. I don’t quite understand why people still choose to drive even they have to wait and crawl their way through serious traffic congestions. Another reason is the transportation junctions, I mean overpass bridges, become very unsafe for biking. In addition, air is super polluted. Anyway, as far as I know, there still are some people insisting to biking nowadays. But it’s more for exercise purpose.

-What’s the key element for you to choose biking as daily traffic mode in Beijing?

I think biking in Beijing is more for weekends’ entertainment and exercise purpose nowadays. Good air quality and good scenery during biking are essential.

-What do you think can be done in existing city? Can Beijing be reformed for biking?

The primary issue that need to be solved is the on-road parking. Car parking is always taking biking space now. And traffic junctions are not safe enough now. For example, when a car driver needs to turn on Chang’an Avenue, he has to take the slow motorway, which is mix used as bikeway and car parking space as well. There is no physical barrier between different road users now.

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Hanfei Xu

-Do you ride a bike often when you are in Hangzhou? Why? I used to cycle a lot when I was in high school. And I still cycle if it’s for sightseeing tour with friends. But not so much for daily use. Because now there are a lot of e-bikes on the road which makes it less safe to ride a bike sharing the same lane. At the moment, I prefer to take taxis. The Uber service in Hangzhou is very cheap, convenient and efficient.

-As a local resident, could you tell me about the develop of biking in Hangzhou in the last decade?

The public bicycle rental program started about 10 years ago. But even with the bicycle rental system developing, at first biking had been cutting down sharp due to the increase of private cars. Recently, because of the serious traffic congestion and the difficulties of parking, people has started to ride again. It doesn’t matter that much when it comes to the weather condition for riding in Hangzhou. And you can easily reach all the places in downtown during an hour. Hangzhou is a tourist city with lots of scenic spots. In most of the scenic zones are non-motor vehicle only. This makes it very convenient to just ride a bike.

-What do you think about the user experience of the bike hire network in Hangzhou?

It works quite well. When it comes to residential districts and scenic spots, the bike rental stations are usually very dense. About only 50 meters from one to another. The first hour is free, then 1 Yuan for each hour. Super cheap.

-What’s the key element for you to choose biking as daily traffic mode?

Safety is very important for me. Also, I prefer to ride only under about 20 minutes. Nice view is also applied.

-Do you have any advice to give for urban cycling?

Hangzhou has just the right size and climate for cycling. The cycle ways are normally separated from the motorways by either bars or greenbelts. And the cycle network has a good consistence. I think those are very important for urban cycling.

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REFERENCES

Timeline of Chang An Avenue, http://xuan.news.cn/zt/iframe_skxw35.html GIS Data, Beijing City Lab Leilei Zhou, Wenbao Liu, (2015) A Glance Back at City of Beijing Comparison of the Street Views from the Similar Perspectives Beijing Design and Research Institute of Surveying and Mapping, [201403879] Stefan Bendiks, Aglae Degros, (2013) Cycle Infrastructure Superkilen / Topotek 1 + BIG Architects + Superflex, http://www.archdaily.com/286223/superkilen-topotek-1-big-architects-superflex Rozana Montiel, http://rozanamontiel.com/investigaciones/cicloton/

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