"It seems that the world suddenly fell silent when the traditionally noisy Mid-Autumn Festival coincided with Car-Free Day," said "ice14" on the microblog at sina.com.cn.

On Wednesday, China celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival, as well as China's fourth Car-Free Day, as citizens in 110 cities were encouraged to leave their cars and travel by public transportations, bicycles, or on foot.

In cities like Beijing, Guangzhou, and Changsha, temporary Car-Free Zones which limit the driving of private cars were set up.

Due to the campaign, many citizens chose to give up driving cars and, instead, use low-carbon means of travel.

"I decided to cycle around on this holiday with my boyfriend after learning that it's Car-Free Day today," said Li Yang, a resident of Jinan in east China's Shandong province.

In Hangzhou, the scenic capital of Zhejiang province, 51,500 bicycles were placed at 2,050 rental points to encourage residents to travel by bicycle, said Tao Xuejun, vice general manager of the Municipal Public Bicycle Service Company.

The municipal transport offices in Zhengzhou city and Kunming city also made special arrangements to support the campaign, including increasing the frequency of buses, adding bus routes, offering discounted tickets and limiting the use of government vehicles. However, the situations differ in other cities, and not all citizens are satisfied with the arrangements of the local authorities.

"Why are there still large traffic jams?" wrote "Yuerrachel", a sina microbloger under a photo showing blocked roads. "It is more of a show", said "Fengjiechuanqi" in a microblog at sina.com.cn.

"It seems no big difference from the daily situation here. Only a few people are willing to give up driving cars," said Cui Rongrong, an economic analyst working in Shandong.

Other netizens also accused the Car-Free policy of becoming an obstacle to normal transport.

"Due to the establishment of the Car-Free Zone on major roads, the private cars which have to go other ways blocked roads outside the zone," said a microblog of "Momingqimiaode" on sina.com.cn.

Actually, the rapid increase in the number of private cars has caused a heavy burden in China's cities. Days before the festival, many cities around the country had witnessed serious traffic jams.

Last Friday evening, 140 traffic jams occurred in Beijing due to the heavy rainfall and holiday traffic before the Mid-Autumn Festival. In the city of Changsha, more than 1,000 kilometers from Beijing, the roads were reported to have turned into huge parking lots during the past two evenings.

"It took me half an hour to go downtown yesterday, three times the time it usually takes," said Cui in Shandong.

Though the influence of the Car-Free campaign is limited, optimistic opinions about it were voiced.

"It is still helpful for increasing the public's sense of protecting the environment," said "lilili8565731" at tieba.baidu.com.

"I think the authorities should make more efforts to improve the public transit services with the residences' needs in mind, instead of putting on a show once a year on Car-Free Day," wrote "niuniuniuniu" at tieba.baidu.com.

Car-Free Day was originated in France in 1998 when citizens in 35 French cities decided to stop driving cars on September 22 of each year. Since then, people around the world have begun to celebrate environmentally friendly transportation every year.

(Xinhua News Agency September 23, 2010)