Is it only me who gets frustrated the umth time straddling buses or trains that never stop come up in the media or on discussion boards? That is, a bus which runs over two lanes of highway traffic, and a two-level train system with one train at constant speed and a feeder module slowing down at stops. The TIME online even named the former The Most Amazing Invention of All Time – now gimme a break.
The real revolution looks much more like this and this:
 Shanghai subway (photo: nozoomii) |
 Chinese high speed train based on the German ICE trains, the Siemens Velaro in particular. (photo: Ivan Walsh) |
Are these “traditional” subway and high speed rail systems just as the ones seen in Europe? Pretty much yes. What makes the Chinese progress unprecedented is the sheer size of these systems and the speed with which these lines are getting built. Although the Chinese high speed lines in operation are currently just a bit shorter than all other high speed lines in the World combined, if you take into account lines under construction (i.e. lines opening easily before 2012), China already has more than half of all high speed rail lines of the World.
If they were not kicking me out of the campus in half an hour I could draw a similar chart of the subway systems too with pretty much the same message. It is not only the Olympic city of Beijing which built a Madrid-size subway network in the same time that Amsterdam, Budapest, Berlin or New York are all messing with one new line, but Shanghai and many more places I will never be able to pronounce. Look at urbanrail.net for example for subway maps and photos.
While the media is obsessed with never-to-be-built superbus boondoggles because they are interesting, it is good to have a second look and see China building good old high speed rail and subway systems, because they actually work. And they are working at a scale never seen before.
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