THE city government will consider imposing a fee on vehicles entering the city center at rush hours in the near future to address the city s increasingly congested roads, a press release by the city s transport commission said Sunday.
The congestion fee was one of the measures the authorities will take to ease congestion, according to the release. However, it didn t elaborate when and how the congestion fee will be charged.
The number of vehicles registered in Shenzhen reached 1.7 million in November last year and it maintained a growth of 20 percent a year, figures from the transport authorities showed.
However, the city has no intention of auctioning license plates like Shanghai to make it more expensive to own a car, or limiting the number of licenses issued each year like Beijing.
Shenzhen will focus on the promotion of public transport among its residents as the city has been making great effort to build a comprehensive transport network of buses and underground rails, said the release.
According to a plan, there will be a bus stop within every 500 meters across the city, making public buses easily accessible in every neighborhood. The construction of the Metro lines is also speeding up with a few more lines being put into service ahead of the Universiade in August.
It isn t the first time the city government has said it would consider introducing a congestion fee. The government said it was considering introducing the congestion fee in March 2007, but saying a lot of research needed to be done before the introduction.
London and Singapore have already imposed such a fee to divert traffic from the city center during rush hour in the morning and evening.
(SD News)
