Beijing plan $ 17.8 bn facelift for 2008 bid

Beijing: Beijing, the current favourite to stage the 2008 Olympic Games, have earmarked $ 17.8 billion to tackle traffic congestion and pollution ahead of next year's decision, state media reported on Monday.

Keen to shake off a reputation for world-beating air pollution and tangled traffic, the Chinese capital will start 50 environmental and transportation projects before the end of the year, 'The China' daily quoted city government sources as saying.

As part of the facelift of the ancient city of 12 million people, nine central thoroughfares will be widened, two subway lines with 82 km (51 miles) of new track will be built and sooty, coal-fired boilers will be replaced with heaters which burn natural gas.

Almost all almost all Beijing's heavy industry are coal-fired, as is heating in most homes. The once-leafy capital, smothered with concrete by communist planners after 1949 and by property developers since the late 1980s, will build green belts along major waterways and around the city, the daily said.

Beijing already vowed to boost the number of smog-free days by replacing diesel buses with vehicles that run on clean-burning fuel and by implementing strict emissions tests.

The city government has promised an ambitious build-up of its roads and a crackdown on errant motorists and illegal parking to tackle traffic snarls and lawless driving.

An International Olympic Committee (IOC) delegation is slated to visit Beijing between February and April next year and the winning bid for the 2008 Games from final candidates Beijing, Paris, Toronto, Osaka and Istanbul will be announced in July.

At the Sydney Games, representatives from several of the competing cities have spoken of Beijing as the frontrunner.



(c) Reuters Limited.