China's Urban Transportation System: Issues and Policies Facing Cities

China is the most populous country in the world. With a population of 1.3 billion, meeting the housing and transportation needs of this vast country are on the forefront of the political and academic agenda in China and throughout the world. China has experienced phenomenal economic and social growth and as a result the Chinese have desired more mobility and living space. The effects of these desires are beginning to be seen in new auto oriented ex-urban developments that have larger living spaces than the traditional urban centers and whose road infrastructure is developed to support high auto use. This results in spatially separated land uses and lower accessibility of goods and services, especially as road demand overruns supply and the transportation network becomes congested. Additionally, urban air pollution will continue to rise as transportation mode shifts from transit and non-motorized modes to the personal automobile. Some countries and cities throughout the world have established effective constraints against unsustainable levels of personal automobile use. A variety of measures have been used including: land use controls, competitive alternatives, user fees, high auto ownership fees, and rationing. These controls have been very effective in other developed Asian cities such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo and many of these tools could be transferred to China. This paper will investigate the rising motorization rate in China and identify some cities that have taken approaches that could potentially alleviate some of the transportation problems in the cities. The first section will describe the main issues surrounding motorization in China. The second section will discuss some of the institutions involved in transportation decisions at the national and local level. The next section will discuss some transportation trends 1 in specific cities and identify different transportation policies that have been established in China. Finally, discussion and conclusions will be presented.