The New York Times
HONG KONG — Maybe a giant tram rolling over pesky cars clogging the streets wasn’t the answer to China’s
traffic congestion woes. A Chinese inventor’s plan to develop such a
vehicle, called a “traffic-straddling bus,” has been effectively killed
after 32 people from an investment company that backed the project were
arrested.
The bus was designed to ride on tracks, but with its body elevated so that two lanes of traffic could pass underneath. Some 1,200 passengers were to have ridden between specialized stops.
But
critics raised many questions, including the expense of installing
tracks and stations, whether tall trucks would get stuck underneath and
about the risk to smaller vehicles and pedestrians.
“Cars
under the belly of the big vehicle would have no way to change
direction, and even changing lanes would be dangerous,” The Beijing News
said last year.
After some delays and breathless news coverage, the TEB-1, or Transit Elevated Bus, was tested in August in the northern seaside town of Qinhuangdao.
In
subsequent months, the Chinese news media and investors raised pointed
questions about the company behind the project, Huaying Kailai. The
company promoted the “reliability” of investing in public-private
partnerships like the bus initiative and promised annual returns of up
to 12 percent. A New York Times reporter who visited Huaying Kailai’s
office in September saw walls lined with photographs of the owner, Bai
Zhiming, with celebrities, entrepreneurs and local officials. A
half-dozen investors stopped by over an hour. Some left with gifts and
grocery bags full of cash.
“We
are just a private tech company. We are not a briefcase company for
illegal fund-raising,” Zhang Wei, the director of development and
planning for TEB Tech, the Huaying Kailai subsidiary that developed the
bus, told the reporter. “Everything we do is approved by related
departments in the government, and if we are an illegal company with
financial issues, why are the local governments still interested in us?”
In
the fall, as public scrutiny increased, the test track and the huge,
72-foot-long, 16-foot-high prototype fell into disuse. In June, workers began dismantling the 330-yard track, a sign the local government would not allow the project to continue.
Mr.
Bai was among the 32 Huaying Kailai staff members arrested last week on
suspicion of illegal fund-raising, the Beijing police announced on Sunday. Company officials could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
Chinese news outlets were harshly critical, saying the exercise was little more than a fraud from the start.
“The truth is the bus was a fake science investment scam, with no scientific innovation,” a Beijing News op-ed said on Monday. “The test was nothing more than a trick to attract investors.”
Austin Ramzy reported from Hong Kong, and Carolyn Zhang from Beijing.
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