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Archive for the ‘China’ Category
» China intends to extend its high-speed rail system towards south Asia and Europe with the goal of two-day journey times between London and Beijing. If China weren’t already halfway through the construction of the world’s largest high-speed rail network, it would be difficult to take this proposal seriously. But the most populated country on earth has shown no deficit of skill recently in undertaking massive public works projects, and its ambitions » A comparison of long-distance high-speed rail routes puts China’s accomplishment in perspective. What makes high-speed rail so remarkable is its ability to move people so quickly from one place to another, and that, of course, requires high average running speeds. In the U.S., even the fastest train — the Acela Express that travels between Boston and Washington, capable of 150 mph — averages only about 80 mph on its 450-mile journey. As has been discussed previously on these pages, while the ability to reach higher and higher speeds is an important element of rail system success, the ability to maintain Railway Ministry announces trip will take less than four hours, versus previously announced five. China’s Beijing-Shanghai high-speed connection, which is the most important link in the country’s ambitious rail plans, will be faster than previously announced when it fully opens in 2013. The project was designed from the start for trains capable of 217 mph top speeds, but the government estimated total trip time of five hours on the 819 mile corridor, which would have meant average speeds of 164 mph on the whole line, a bit above typical for a corridor of this type. The country  Yonah Freemark |  June 25th, 2009 |  Filed Under: Beijing, China, High-Speed Rail, Shanghai |  5 comments Three more routes centering around Shanghai planned China, as described before, has embarked on the world’s largest high-speed rail program, with more than 10,000 km of passenger rail lines under construction to connect the nation’s largest and most important cities. The result will be truly expanded mobility for the country’s citizens and vastly reduced travel times. Most important, perhaps, is the Beijing-Shanghai link, which will connect the country’s two largest metro regions, and whose construction began in April of 2008.
» We can learn a lot when we compare. In the United States, perhaps because of our geographical isolation from Europe and Asia, we have a tendency to ignore the successes of other nations, focusing instead on our own society as the be-all-end-all, even when we have been outmatched by our foreign peers. There is little doubt that the United States is frequently miserably slow at updating its infrastructure, but we do not bring up international competition in the interest Charlotte’s year old light rail system, according to the Observer, experienced a slight drop in ridership in November, from 16,470 average weekday trips in October to 15,551. There are several reasonable explanations for this drop – colder whether, a broken economy (including the collapse of the city’s largest employer, Wachovia), and the Thanksgiving vacation. But even the new ridership numbers are far higher than those originally predicted for first year ridership – 9,100 a day. The south’s second city, then, remains an example for how new LRT projects can be implemented successfully. Charlotte’s focused land use program, which encouraged Yonah Freemark | December 31st, 2008 | Filed Under: Charlotte, China, High-Speed Rail, Light Rail, United Kingdom | Leave a comment |
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