Autumn is the fall of pedestrian serenity

While walking nearby Wangfujing one fine autumn morning this week, I came across a group of brightly-clad security personnel in unfamiliar uniforms. Apparently, they are there to protect pedestrians like myself from the dangers posed by Beijing's traffic. They lacked the air of confident indifference I associate with their grubbier counterparts who engage in traffic management as a profession, rather than as a paradoxical appointment as a short-term volunteer.　

They seemed to mill around, looking rather confused. After concluding that they were not going to dive between me and any potential speeding vehicle like some kind of human shield, I decided I should continue across the street with my usual paranoid caution.

The current wave of inspections taking place in the city has even affected this humble writer. My own favorite local is a regular fixture on my dining schedule; a combination of a bricks-and-mortar restaurant working in glorious synergy with a group of chuanr (skewered meat) operators, knocking out quite reasonable lamb kebabs as well as spicy chicken kebabs.

Now, however, the front of the restaurant is bare and the heady waft of cooking meat gone from the street. I find this to be quite unfortunate, as I had become quite accustomed to its charms in that it hardly ever gives me the runs anymore.

The truth is, dear readers, people like me really are quite shameless when it comes to matters like this. This is being environmentally-friendly in a very literary sense, recycling old, jaded, stories like the inspections as if they were a bright, shiny new story, full of novelty and vibrant freshness.

In reality, it comes around with the regularity of springtime sandstorms or the annual release of tree sperm throughout the city. I would normally muster up the energy to wax lyrical about the sudden autumn downturn in the variety of DVDs available in shops, but my talents as lexical eco-warrior do not extend to such lengths.

But while the annual dance of doors of Beijing restaurants is nothing new, the buildup of traffic behind the new traffic personnel is giving Beijing a whole new look. Using the walk from my home to the subway as an anecdotal yardstick, I have seen the streets going from a few cars here and there to a situation where sidewalks are inaccessible, all spare space consumed to the point of saturation.

The city's arteries are being blocked and people no longer have space for their shiny toys. Automated, robotic parking systems, both large and small, may be an expensive solution, but some solution is needed. As both a pedestrian, and more recently, a cyclist, going about one's daily business has almost become something worthy of a reality TV show.

Personally, I would much rather avoid all the drama and return to the safety of relatively clear sidewalks and bicycle lanes.

By Niall O Murchadha