Beijing to Add Thousands of Kilometers of Bike Lanes

Beijing will add 3,200 kilometers of bike lanes to city streets within the Third Ring Road by 2020 the director of the Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission said in late April.

The city also plans to add 10,000 new public rental bicycles this year, including 3,000 in Haidian District, Zhou Zhengyu said at Beijing Bicycle Day 2016 in Shijingshan, Beijing Today reported.

More overpasses and parking enforcement in bike lanes will make it easier for cyclists, Zhou said. "New overpasses and pedestrian crossings will be modeled on the system used in Hong Kong to keep traffic safe and orderly," he added. This seems like a strange statement, considering that at least Hong Kong Island's central business districts are most certainly not bicycle-friendly, and few people commute by bicycle or use bikes there.

Beijing once had the most bicycles and cyclists of any city in the world, according to Smarter Than Car, an organization that seeks to turn drivers back on to bikes as a primary or alternate means of transportation. It has since lost that title to Copenhagen, Denmark, where 36 percent of the population commutes to work or school by bicycle.