Local streets are more crowded during the rush hours as more office workers and university students drive private sedans to work or school, rather than taking buses.

University students are accounting for an exceptionally large population of the private drivers recently.

They drive cars, either borrowed from parents or given as present by parents, to school, cafes, balls and to shopping and sporting for more convenience.

Previously, nearly all the local universities banned students from driving cars to school because of safety concerns, but today more universities are lowering their threshold.

The East China Normal University, with a big campus and parking lot, is the first to allow students' cars to enter with no admission fee or parking charges.

"The only thing drivers need to show at the school gate is an official pass," Ge, head of the Security Center affiliated to the university introduced.

Any student or teacher of the university is eligible to apply for the pass, free of charge.

Other schools with limited space don't respond so actively, but nearly all of them showed a tolerance, including the smallest university -- Shanghai International Studies University (SHISU).

SHISU charges an hourly parking fee of 10 yuan (US$1.21) for any car parking on campus for more than an hour. The first hour, however, is free.

SHISU's policy aims at limiting the number of cars parking on campus and encouraging them to leave as soon as possible.

The Fudan University, one of the oldest and most well-known comprehensive universities with a spacious campus, however, is the exception who has banned students' sedans all through.

Only the adult students taking night classes and the teachers are eligible for partially paid parking places. The students enrolled through college entrance examinations don't have the privilege.

Jiaotong University, another prominent university in the city, hasn't issued a ban, but said it wouldn't encourage students to drive a car to school, for it's not necessary.

But as more athletes with Olympic gold medals are enrolled in local universities, especially in the Jiaotong University, private sedans, even luxury ones, are leading the trend on campus.

(eastday.com August 20, 2003)