Improved public transportation can help address parking problem

Last year Beijing announced that it would create more than 17,000 parking lots and turned another 10,000 institutionally owned parking lots into shared ones. The news generated such enthusiasm that a local newspaper devoted an entire page to explain how the work was done and what it signified.

To keep its promise of adding more parking lots, the Beijing municipal government added its districts and sub-districts to the plan, turning idle plots and more roadsides spaces into parking lots and persuading government institutions to share their parking lots with neighborhood residents at night, and on weekends and holidays.

The efforts of the municipal government should be applauded, especially because we know it is a mission impossible for most of the municipalities in the country to solve the parking problem.