Beijing Letter:Beijing has been in holiday mood for the past few days - strangely quiet, with the traffic moving swiftly along the ring roads. Even at rush hour, commuters reckoned they got to work quicker on the trolley bus than usual.
The atmosphere has been surprisingly positive, considering the government has been trying to do the impossible and separate Beijing residents from their beloved cars for four days. The government has issued a rallying call to get 1.3 million cars off the road to improve air quality one year ahead of the Olympics. And, by and large, the city's 14 million people answered the call.
From 6am on Thursday until midnight last night, drivers with odd or even number plates could only drive on the corresponding odd and even days. My number plate ends in "5", so I could drive on Friday and Sunday.
Driving was a pleasure, a bit like driving at Chinese New Year when everyone has gone back to their hometowns in rural China or is visiting their relatives. No bad-tempered commuters.
Driving along the broad avenues, with green belts laid out along their length, you could see that Beijing is going to look very presentable indeed if the sprucing-up measures pay off.
But the air was still pretty foul - Beijing's car population passed the three million mark in May, with 1,000 cars registered a day - and environmental officials said it would take some time to see if these measures would have any effect.
The hazy start to Friday did not augur well, but by late afternoon the skies were definitely clearer than the usual soupy air that hangs over the gridlocked traffic, seeming to bear out expert opinion that said pulling 1.3 million motor vehicles off the roads could reduce emissions by 40 per cent.
The readings from the city's 32 monitoring stations showed air quality in Beijing stood at 91, just scraping into the "fairly good" category between 51 and 100. This counts as grade II, which means the air is good enough to hold international events, said Du Shaozhong, spokesman for Beijing's Environmental Protection Bureau.
Thursday's reading was 115, which comes under the "slightly polluted" heading.
Car ownership is a relatively new phenomenon in China, and the government is a fierce supporter of people owning their own cars. Any efforts to rein in the mighty car have met stiff resistance.
What is driving this move is that Beijing's polluted skies threaten to embarrass the organisers of the summer games. International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said during a visit recently that some endurance events at next year's games might have to be postponed if the air quality is not good enough.
Some coaches and athletes are concerned that air-quality tests in China do not record levels of ozone and smaller particulate matter. Officials, however, are optimistic.
"The traffic restrictions will definitely reduce vehicle pollutants and will work effectively," said a confident Du.
"The experience we gain from this test will shed light on the adoption of measures to guarantee environmental quality at the Olympic Games next year."
The tactics are nothing new - Seoul took similar steps back in 1988 when it hosted the games, and Athens had its share of pollution woes before it held the games in 2004, though nothing as bad as Beijing.
City authorities are trying to deal with pollution ahead of the games by shutting steel plants and banishing coal-fired power stations from the city, but car fumes are a big offender, pumping nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and particle pollution into the air.
More than 80 per cent of the cars in the city are private cars. There were a few grumbles from drivers who were forced to hop on a bus to get to work, but in general the ban seemed to work, and 8.4 million people were expected to take public transport over the four days compared with 6.4 million on average.
The government reckons that 200,000 to 300,000 more metro journeys were made, while there were 1.5 million to 1.6 million more bus passengers. Many used carpools, which advertise on the internet.
People got up earlier because the rush hour was extended from two to three hours. More people took the metro and the passenger flow was smooth, platform attendants said. Zhao Fang, a conductor at Xizhimen metro station on the city's loop line, said there was a 20 per cent passenger rise starting at 6.30am, half an hour earlier than usual.
Anyone trying to sneak past the beady eyes of traffic police posted at strategic points around the city faced a €10 fine, but the majority were happy to obey.
Passersby peered at a black BMW with an odd-numbered plate parked outside Babyface nightclub on Saturday the 18th. They did not approve.
