While Beijing announced it was selectively banning cars (odd/even days) to clean up the air for the Olympics, Cadel Evans was there riding the road race course and said, “my lungs hurt to breathe … .”
Taking a claimed 1.3 million cars off the road is impressive and they’ll also blast the sky with rain cannons, encourage more mass transit, and of course just ride their bikes. Don’t know if that’s going to make it any easier to breathe, but at least they’re trying.
Beijing is also piloting bike rental programs right now. Nothing like the scrutiny of the world to get a country to pony-up to their environment-wasting ways.