Sharing the Sidewalk: Parking Places in China

China’s burgeoning auto culture has demanded some quick alterations to city streets

Andrew Johnston
The Expat Chronicles

--

Courtesy of the author

One of the major signs of China’s development is increased rates of car ownership. Where once only a select handful of people owned personal vehicles, cars of every imaginable make now fill the roads. Far from just a symbol of material affluence, they have become a part of social capital in that a car is one of three things that one must possess(along with an apartment and a healthy bank account) before getting married.

Naturally, this obsession with cars has brought about all of the problems that we in the West are all too familiar with. One of those is an issue of physical space — a car can take you many places, but one must find a place to put the thing. Parking may seem like a petty issue, but it can lead to bigger problems if it isn’t addressed.

The problem here is that most Chinese cities simply aren’t designed with cars in mind. The layouts strongly favor bicycles and mass transit, the most common forms of transport for many years. And while bicycles also need to be left somewhere (to the point where they can block the sidwalks, as happens in places where rental bike programs get out of control), this never causes the same kind of problem.

Back home, our solution to this is the parking lot. It’s a straightforward solution — we need room for cars, so let’s designate this piece of land as a space for cars only. Need more room? Build more lots, or build them upwards. It’s not exactly an elegant solution, or an aesthetically pleasing one — our plan to pave the land in asphalt is a big part of that ugly post-industrial sprawl that now defines many mid-sized cities of the North American interior.

But the parking lot isn’t even really a viable solution in many places in China. Cities here are very densely built, with little room wasted (and, from a city design perspective, lots are absolutely a waste). Oh, there is room underneath those packed streets, and one does see the occasional subterranean parking lot beneath the bigger shopping centers. Those don’t come cheap, though, and they aren’t an option in most areas.

The answer, then, is simple: We have big sidewalks, let’s just have people park there.

In a weird sort of way, this does make sense. On-street parking like what one sees in North America really won’t work, as most streets have a secondary path for bicycles and motorbikes that leaves little spare room. On the other hand, the footpaths in front of many shops are exceptionally wide — wide enough to accommodate a car or two. Paint a few lines, throw up some concrete obstructions and a gate to control the traffic, and you’re good to go.

Even after years here, the sight of cars parked on what were clearly intended to be pedestrian thoroughfares is very odd, more so when I’m on a casual stroll and hear a sudden honk from the rear. But however strange it is, it does seem to work, at least as well as any other jury-rigged Chinese solution. For that matter, in the more lightly populated areas, one can see common streets shared by cars, bikes, pedestrians, and even animals. What works, works.

Besides, as everyone knows, the real traffic problem in China is con artists jumping in front of cars — but that’s a story for another time.

--

--

Andrew Johnston
The Expat Chronicles

Writer of fiction, documentarian, currently stranded in Asia. Learn more at www.findthefabulist.com.