Outsider motor vehicles will not be allowed to enter Badaling tourist area

A motor vehicle ban will be implemented in the Badaling Tourist Area; the 17 parking lots in the area will be removed and over 40 environmentally-friendly buses will transport passengers to and from the area. Reporters learned from the ongoing Yanqing County NPC and CPPCC conferences that motor vehicles will be prohibited from entering the Badaling Tourist Area as of October 1, 2010 in order to better protect the area's cultural relics.

Vehicles waiting to get into a parking lot in the Badaling tourist area

Chaotic traffic conditions have been a problem in the Badaling Tourist Area for many years. Reporters learned that before the Beijing-Badaling Expressway opened to traffic, the Beijing-Badaling Highway (S216) was the only road linking the areas to the north and south of the Great Wall. The highway goes through two openings in the Badaling section of the Great Wall. Because the openings are very narrow, vehicles usually formed a 2-kilometer line during rush hour, affecting the traffic capacity of the highway.

Now, traffic pressure on the highway is still heavy despite the fact that the Beijing-Badaling Expressway has been opened and has eased the traffic pressure in the Badaling Tourist Area to a certain degree because no side road of the expressway has been built. Meanwhile, heavy-duty trucks and farm vehicles with a load capacity of over 8 tons travel on the highway and, in particular, pass through the tourist area and the openings in the Great Wall because they are not allowed to travel on the expressway. Dust, discarded objects, noise and exhaust have done serious harm to the Great Wall. Some passing vehicles have even hit the Great Wall. Furthermore, chaotic traffic conditions involving vehicles and pedestrians usually cause hidden risks.

Zhao Jianjun, director of the Badaling Tourist Area Administrative Office, told reporters that the motor vehicle ban aims to prevent motor vehicles doing harm to cultural relics and endangering pedestrians in the area.

Construction of a new line to replace part of the functions performed by the Beijing-Badaling Highway began in April 2007. Beginning at a forest farm in the north, the line goes south past the Qinglong Bridge, the Tanyugou Tunnel and the Great Wall before reaching Nanyuan. Currently, the main part of the project has been completed and the line will be open to traffic by October 1, 2010. After the motor vehicle ban goes into effect, the Badaling Tourist Area Administrative Office will upgrade internal road network by launching the No. 110 side road project, a road renovation project at a toll gate near the Badaling Wildlife World and a road renovation project at the exit to the Heilogntan Parking Lot. Currently, a circular one-way road directly links the Badaling Tourist Area and the Beijing-Badaling Expressway.