Beijing Gears for Olympics
Willi Chen
The Canadians of Ontario have blamed their Mayor, Mel Lastman, for losing their bid to host the Olympic Games in 2008, when he made the foolish remark about not wanting to go to Mozambique, for fear the natives would boil him in a pot and eat him.
Seven out of eight journalists lambasted him and attributed his faux pas to foot-and-mouth disease.
But justifiably rejoicing in its victory of having been picked as the host nation to the Games, China has reasons to celebrate because of the strategic plan it had outlined to the call of the International Olympic Committee.
The three themes to be adopted were mainly “to be green,” to promote an upliftment of human causes, and to explore to the fullest the technological aspects of life.
Beijing’s aim is to gain total improvement of the whole society in relation to its people, the environment and to the urban infrastructure.
An extensive programme includes a massive pipe work of natural gas lines, which will be constructed for domestic and industrial use, eliminating coal as fuel for boilers, increasing the supply of thermal energy sources, in addition to the trapping of solar energy.
Public transportation will be expanded by extensive routes and lanes.
The Bawangten-Tongzhou Route, with its high-speed rail, will reduce the use of transit vehicles.
Clean fuel will be used, and more than 300 liquid gas stations will be built.
Inspection and strict maintenance will be implemented to meet international standards, using the dynamometer approach for emission inspection. Old vehicles will be scrapped.
Beijing plans to modernise its transport systems, so that the city will be vitally and strategically linked with over 140 airports.
It is planned that athletes will transfer freely from airports to Olympic stadiums in a matter of 20 minutes.
Green plans
All buses will be converted into natural gas engines—pollution-free for 2008.
In Beijing, buses will carry ten million people along 650 routes by 2008, the number of vehicles will increase to 150,000, most of which will be manufactured to work with electronic systems for control announcement and movement to handle four and one-half million people.
Such awaited expressways like the Beijing Shiziazhuang, Tianjin-Tanzgu, Capital Airport Highway, Beijing Harbin and the Badaling are under heavy construction with other expressways that will be ready for the Games.
Beijing has advanced plans for dust pollution control, storage for waste material and garbage to be used, and water quality improvement projects at Guanting to be improved in conjunction with the Miyun and Huiaivon reservoirs, with an aim to restore ground water levels of purified water.
But Beijing’s ambitious plans revealed a complete desire to change in its image of greenery.
Large areas will be covered with trees and lawns, and old unauthorised buildings will be demolished.
Forty per cent area of greenery is targeted for coverage and even wildlife will be protected from bounty hunters.
The use of environmentally-friendly materials will be used for building equipment and other facilities.
The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Bid Committee has adhered to the vitally strict principles of the Olympic Movement Agenda for the 21st Century, and by its commitment to the grand scheme of world-class environment life improvement plan, has now proven itself a worthy candidate to qualify as the ideal host to the 2008 Olympic Games.
The Games promise to be the most meaningful and spectacular event that can have tremendous effect on China in all aspects of its social, economic and cultural history.