Bicycles for Transporting… [fill in the blank]

All photos by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country

Earlier this month I posted 30 photos of Utility Cycling in China. That post generated a lot of interest because like me, you are probably intrigued by how the Chinese use their bicycles for practical purposes – like pizza delivery, garbage pickup, cargo shipping, etc.

On my last day in China I stayed for one final day in Shanghai – snapping dozens of photos for the Shanghai Cycle Chic article. I couldn’t resist taking more photos of people using their bicycles for utility purposes - so this article is a collection of 19 more photos from my final day in Shanghai.

Enjoy!

Bicycles for transporting… dead palm tree leaves

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Shanghai Cycle Chic

All photos by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country

During my recent trip to China I was fortunate enough to spend a few days in Shanghai. Before I went to China, I promised Mikael Colville-Andersen that I would snap some photos of “Cycle Chic” action while biking around Shanghai.

Mikael popularized the term “Cycle Chic” in his blog Copenhagen Cycle Chic which he started 3 years ago. The Cycle Chic movement has now spread across the globe – but unfortunately nobody has started a “Shanghai Cycle Chic” blog at the time of this writing (The Urban Country is blocked within China, so the people of Shanghai won’t be able to view this post)

Cycle Chic means different things for different people. To me, it’s riding your bike in your regular clothes – be it your work clothes, your clubbing clothes, or your Sunday attire – whatever it is that you happen to be wearing.

It’s about riding with style and without the requisite of any pretentious clothing or gear.

As evidenced in my recent article Utility Cycling in China, the bicycle is a tool in China that serves a useful purpose. It gets people from A to B fast. It’s convenient to park, it’s inexpensive and it’s healthy.

The following photos illustrate how regular people in their regular attire use bicycles for transportation in Shanghai:

Happiness is in the air:

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Life at 430km/h

Photos and video by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country

Imagine you could build a train that could take you 100KM in less than 15 minutes. Where would you put this train? From your home to you workplace? To your Grandma’s house?

I had the pleasure of riding the Shanghai Maglev high speed train earlier this month when I first arrived in China. I am fascinated by this train and the opportunities it presents for the future of transporting people.

Following is a video of my experience on the Shanghai Maglev train to give you an idea of how it feels to progress to 430 km/h and cover a distance of 30 kilometres in only 7 minutes:

This train uses magnetic levitation to prevent the train from having physical contact with the track – thus eliminating rolling resistance to improve efficiency in the amount of energy required to run the train.

Our train systems in North America are far behind the rest of the world. Most of our trains run on dirty diesel and few train routes are actually faster than driving, so it’s no wonder most people still primarily use automobiles as their primary means of transportation.

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The Americanization of China?

All photos by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country

Today is my last day on Hainan island – China’s southernmost (and smallest) province. Hainan is developing at an extremely fast pace. Hainan was designated as a Special Economic Zone in the 1980’s, and earlier this year China announced its intentions on turning Hainan into an international island by 2020.

Hainan already attracted more than 22 million tourists last year – an increase of 9 percent over 2008, and it is also setting up duty free zones to attract even more tourists – luring business away from nearby Hong Kong.

As a result, there is construction everywhere you look. Most of the construction seems to be 5-star resorts and vacation homes for wealthy mainlanders and out-of-country vacationers. A lot of international money is being poured into the island to bring it up to international standards.

In a new housing development near Han’s parents home, I found a poster advertising the new community under construction. This particular development is called “Ocean Spring Resort”, and the poster depicts happy middle-upper class white people with their automobiles, and no room for bikes/scooters/motorcycles.

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Pedaling Haikou City, China

Video by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to ride a bike in China? The short film above shows footage of me pedaling around Haikou City yesterday – the capital of the province of Hainan, China. Haikou’s population is somewhere around 1 million people – and I’d be willing to bet there are close to 1 million scooters in Haikou – they are everywhere!

Like most North Americans, when I first visited Haikou in 2007 my first instinct was that you would have to be crazy to ride a bike in this city. It seems like madness – cars rarely stay within the painted lines and motorcycles, bicycles and scooters frequently ride the wrong way and rarely stop at red lights.

But after 3 days of cycling around Haikou, I have never felt safer cycling anywhere else in the world (I haven’t yet visited the Netherlands).

Although it might seem chaotic, everyone drives much slower here than in North America. Even on highways, people rarely drive faster than 80km/h. Within the city, when a car passes you, they usually leave you lots of space. If they don’t leave you a lot of space, they pass you at a slow speed.

It also helps that there are cycle tracks on almost every street in the city for bicycles. There is nothing more comfortable for me than being physically segregated from automobile traffic in a city.

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Utility Cycling in China

All photos by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country (May 2010)

In big Chinese cities – like it or not - bicycles are a vital ingredient to keep the cities moving. From pizza delivery, to painters, to garbage pickup, to cargo shipping, to transporting people – bicycles are everywhere in cities like Shanghai and Beijing.

Unfortunately, in smaller cities like Haikou, Hainan - where I am currently staying – bicycles have all but disappeared from everyday life. Scooters, e-bikes, motorcycles, public transit and automobiles have become the primary methods of transportation and doing business in Haikou.

Bicycles in China are regarded as the poor man’s vehicle – so it is no wonder people jumped on the opportunity to purchase an automobile, scooter or motorcycle as their incomes increased. After all, smaller cities like Haikou have more space to store and park them than bigger cities in China and you typically have to travel further to get to your destination.

(Not the mention the sweltering heat in this sub-tropical climate where a 5 minute walk will leave your clothes dripping with sweat).

It is these reasons, I reckon – that bikes are still so prominent in Shanghai – where space is very limited and everything is closer together and expensive. Bikes are efficient, cheap, and take up very little space on both the roads and for parking.

But Shanghai has a choice to make. As automobile usage continues to rise, do they take away space from bicycles and scooters to make room to support more automobiles? Or do they encourage people to continue using bicycles instead of cars?

It’s very obvious in Shanghai that cars take up too much space to be a sustainable solution for the future of the city. When traffic is at a halt, you can watch hundreds of scooters and bicycles pass by on the cycle tracks while the cars wait.

Cars do serve an important need in cities, but the capacity of automobiles that a city can support is much more limited than bikes, scooters and motorcycles.

If you have any doubts about the usefulness of bicycles in China, I have snapped hundreds of photos over the past 2 weeks to showcase real Chinese utility cycling. Here are my 30 favourite photos:

These e-bikes are used for delivering KFC chicken – a very popular chain here in China:

The KFC and Pizza Hut delivery people even wear bike helmets (an otherwise rare occurrence here):

 

This painter is headed to work on his Dutch-style bicycle – ladder in tow:

Boxes of fruit perhaps?

 

Flowers anyone?

These cargo trikes are very common in Shanghai:

This city worker and her colleague were using one of these cargo trikes to pick up trash from the sidewalk and roadway:

Here’s another trike packed to the gills:

These gentlemen were transporting what appeared to be a bed. I captured this shot while they were taking the bed off the bike:

 

More flowers for sale:

If you look carefully, this father son pair were transporting a big bag of something on the back of their bike.

Here’s a snapshot from behind to better show you the big heavy bag tied to the back of the bike:

This trike is just sitting there idle right now:

This is how they recycle in China:

Sometimes these trikes are used as a “getaway car”:

This labourer had everything he needs strapped to his bike:

This trike was taking scraps away from a building renovation:

Yes, there is really a bath tub on the back of this bike:

Blind spot? What blind spot?

Another day, another trike:

Yes, this guy is actually hauling a refrigerator on his bike:

This worker was filling up the water tank on the back of his bike:

Where was he pumping the water from you ask? The fire hydrant of course!

I’m not sure what this guy was planning to build. Some sort of cage perhaps?

Yup, that’s a bed he’s moving on his bike:

 

Look who just purchased a big screen TV:

Whoa, this big screen TV is a bit heavy:

Fruit delivery on bikes is very common in China:

Here’s another city cleanup crew using a bike to pick up the trash and transport the workers:

James D. Schwartz is the editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com.

Stay tuned – more articles from my 3-week trip to China are on the way.

Related Articles:

• Handicap Bike Parking (May 2010)
• Giving New Meaning to “Cargo Bike” (Jan 2010)
• Bicycles for Transporting… [fill in the blank] (May 2010)
• Shanghai Cycle Chic (May 2010)

Handicap Bike Parking

Photo by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country

In Shanghai, there are a lot of bikes.. a LOT of bikes. With the high costs of car ownership, heavy pollution and traffic congestion, bikes are still a great alternative and you can quickly get around the city.

However, bikes are still generally considered to be the poor-man’s machine - and as the economy grows and people’s income increases, people are ditching their bikes for scooters, e-bikes and  automobiles.

Problem is, bikes and pedestrians are the bottom of the food chain. The only traffic enforcement you will see in Shanghai is to keep pedestrians out of the way of the automobiles. The single goal is to keep cars moving as quickly as possible.

In Shanghai, cars always have the right-of-way. Even if you have a “walk” signal - which indicates the “right-of-way” in North America – don’t be fooled into thinking you have the right-of-way.

You need to wait for a gap in cars - even though they are passing through a red light – and you need to run to avoid slowing down automobile traffic. The consequence of not doing so? At best, you will be brushed by a fast-moving automobile.

Fortunately, the traffic engineers have recognized this potential conflict between cyclists and automobiles, so they have provided many barrier-protected cycle tracks for bicycles and scooters, automobile-free streets as well as bike-free streets.

Photo by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country 

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