Here is an article on green commuting on China Daily web. Ines was interviewed and she stated her smart ideas on cycling. Please click here to read the full article.

In 2001, when Ines Brunn first visited Beijing, she was impressed by the sight of millions of cyclists riding along wide, flat asphalt lanes separated from the sidewalks and main roads. The city’s streets abounded with bikes, and during her short stay Brunn was thrilled to see so many cyclists in one place, so she decided to return.

However, in 2006, when she moved to Beijing to live and work, she discovered that the roads had been taken over by automobiles, and the number of cyclists had plummeted.

Her disappointment was compounded by the attitudes of her Chinese colleagues at a multinational company when she told them she cycled to the office every day.

“In their eyes, if you rode a bike you were really poor,” Brunn said, recalling that she had already started working with a number of environmental NGOs to advocate the increased use of bikes. Since then, Brunn – who owns Natooke, China’s first fixed-gear bike workshop, in Wudaoying near the famous Lama Temple – has spent much of her working and leisure time attempting to convince people that cycling is cool, socially responsible, and definitely not an indication of financial status.

“People were listening, but they didn’t want to change. I realized the discussions were not changing people’s attitudes toward bicycles,” said the 39-year-old native of Iserlohn, a city in western Germany.

If people weren’t listening to her back in 2006, they are certainly getting the message now, as the city is plagued by seemingly endless traffic jams and declining air quality. In response, as part of a series of “green transportation” measures, the Beijing government aims to make bikes account for 18 percent of the city’s traffic by the end of 2020.