Leo Horn, an environmental economist who has been coming to China since the 1980s and written some highly noted paper’s on China’s environmental situation, puts Beijing’s current bicycle situation in context with that in Paris and London in this video.

While Beijing has a great deal more space on the roads for bicycles than Paris or London, bicycle space has been diminishing in recent years.

Leo said the attitude towards bikes is shown by how laws primarily protect cars against damages caused by pedestrians and bikes, rather than the other way around.

In visiting the Giant Bicycle shop (here’s a link in English), one of Beijing’s biggest and fanciest bike shops, Leo and I were struck by the total lack of safety equipment, such as reflectors and lamps.

I believe Bicyclists in London are required by law to wear fluorescent jackets, but we could not find any sort of reflective jacket or leg-band in the shop. The shop had no idea where we could find one. (They did, however, sell bicycle helmets.) At night, few bicycles in Beijing use lamps.

One positive move for air pollution has been Beijing’s move to require battery powered scooters, rather than allow the two stroke engines the spew filth into the air of Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City and other places in Asia. There is, however, an important decision to make when buying one of these bikes: Make sure to buy a lithium-based battery rather than a tough to dispose Acid-Lead battery.

Finally, an important Beijing cycling tip: Bicycles going the wrong way in cycling lanes hug the left-hand curb. This effectively makes bike lanes an oasis of British-style left-hand driving!

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