BEIJING, Chinaâ¬As I look out of my hotel room window on my first full day here, it is hard to tell where the clouds end and the haze of pollution begins. Smog, which worsens as the day progresses, obscures the Jundu and Xishan mountains ringing the city as well as the many monuments and landmark buildings in town. China has spent nearly $17 billion (120 billion yuan) since 2001 to clean its capital city's notoriously dirty air, but the atmosphere is still filled with car and truck exhaust as well as the dust from innumerable construction sites and the smoke belched by coal-fired industrial and power facilities. During various taxi rides through this sprawling and massive metropolis, I notice that none of the cars sharing the roadâ¬Volkswagens, Buicks, Chevys and Hyundais, to name a few of the makesâ¬appear to be more than a few years old. The main arteries in town are jam-packed with vehicles day and night, and traffic continues to worsen as members of the growing Chinese middle class purchase their first cars, according to longtime resident Timothy Hui, program manager of the Beijing office of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an international environmental group. "There are too many people driving," a taxi driver, who declined to be identified by name, told me through a translator. "The only cars that should be allowed on the road are taxicabs and public transportation. Everyone wants to drive." Although taxis are relatively cheap in Beijingâ¬it costs about $10 (70 yuan) plus toll for the 28 mile (45 kilometer) ride from the airport to downtownâ¬purchasing a car is viewed as a major sign of arrival in the middle class. Still, my driver may soon get his wishâ¬at least temporarily. The city plans to close at least 144 of its nearly 1,500 gas stations and ban cars without appropriate license plates from the roads during the Olympics set to be held here from August 8 to 24. During a test run last year, the city eliminated 1.3 million cars from the road for four days, which resulted in a drop of more than 5,800 metric tons of air pollutants, according to the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau. As part of its effort to cleanse the Olympic air, the officials also to close or move factories to the suburbs, ban the burning of stubble in surrounding agricultural fields, and suspend all construction beginning July 1. But enviros say that it remains to be seen whether these steps will solve the problem. The city government reported 86 so-called "blue sky days" so far this year through May 2, which was 11 more than during the same period last year. This blue sky measurement is a rating of various pollutants, including acid rainâ¬causing sulfur dioxide, smog-forming nitrogen oxides, and fine soot. If the worst of these three pollutants is below 101 in the scale, the day gets the blue sky label. Although I've certainly seen a bright blue sky overhead during my stay, there was never a day free of haze, described by locals as "fog"â¬and air quality consistently falls short of the World Health Organization's lower limits. To me, breathing the air in Beijing is akin to when I smoked cigarettes, producing a phlegmy cough at the beginning and end of the day as well as black dust in my nose. A burning smellâ¬from soot and actual cigarette smokingâ¬is omnipresent. Concerns about this ubiquitous smog prompted marathon world record holder Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia to pull out of the competition in this summer's games and the medical commission of the International Olympic Committee has warned that the thick pollution may prevent athletes in outdoor endurance from competing at peak levels. It also remains unclear whether any of this frenzied pre-Olympic cleanup will be sustained. Similar efforts to eliminate smog before the Olympic games in Los Angeles in 1984 and in Athens in 2004 were not followed through. "It is bitter air that you can feel," Hui said during an interview in his office next to two construction sites and a major highway. "People hate it. They complain." So will it finally be cleaned up? Only if the residents grumble so much, he says, that the local and central government will not be able to ignore them.