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Barun Roy January 10, 2013
While India can only 'hope' to become a superpower, China already has in place a web of railways and expressways - that's only getting denser
The significance of Chinas latest bullet train connecting Beijing and Guangzhou, across 2,298 km of territory, is not simply that its the longest high-speed railway in the world, but that it brings two distant growth regions of the country closer than ever before. Hurtling at an average speed of 300 km per hour, the new trains will cut travel time between the two places from over 20 hours to less than eight.
Why is speed important? It shrinks space, breaks down isolation, opens up opportunities and strengthens togetherness. It enhances the value of time as an economic input. It spreads growth around and lends a sense of purpose to where one wants to go. Above all, it makes connectivity more efficient and productive, and connectivity is as important an element of nationhood as geography, language, culture, and tradition. Not all nations realise this. India certainly doesnt. China supremely does.
Just imagine. Chinas first high-speed railway, linking Beijing and Tianjin, went into service only in 2008. In the four years since then, its bullet network has grown to more than 9,300 km. By 2015, when the country will have around 120,000 km of railways in operation, 18,000 km of high-speed lines will be in place, with trains running at 300 km per hour, in addition to an express railway network of 40,000 km supporting speeds of 160 km per hour or more. The intention is to build a grid of high-speed lines running north to south and east to west, and a full complement of connectors in between, to bind the entire country more tightly together.
But high-speed trains are only one part of the story. The bigger part is the amazing spread of Chinas expressways that now form the worlds largest freeway network, surpassing the 75,932-km US interstate system that till now had been the global topper. At the end of 2012, the Chinese expressway network stood at around 96,000 km. Back only 16 years ago, in 1996, that figure was 3,200 km. In 1988, when expressways entered Beijings list of priorities, it was a paltry 147 km. If this growth sounds like a crazy blitzkrieg, remember that its the crazy who act and achieve; its the lazy who slog and survive.
As it now stands, the network has seven radial expressways taking off from Beijing, nine vertical expressways going from north to south, 18 horizontal expressways heading west to east, plus connecting expressways and regional/metropolitan ring expressways, forming a vast web thats getting denser and denser. Only motor vehicles are allowed on these freeways and they cant be slower than 70 km per hour or faster than 120. No traffic lights impede traffic flow, and cross traffic is always grade-separated.
Then, there are the bridges. All over the country, thousands of new bridges are being built every year, across rivers, lakes, gorges, canyons, and even seas, to cut distances, provide links, and bring new communities into the mainstream of economic activity. In the Yangtze and Pearl River deltas, bridges have helped the creation of vast economic zones, easing the movement of goods and people between hubs.
When growth is on the rise and has to be maintained, even a 20-minute saving on commuting time is considered worth spending millions on a new bridge. The 42-km Jiaozhou Bay Bridge, opened in June 2011 and still the longest over-water road bridge in the world, shaves just 30.5 km off the distance from Qingdao to Huangdao, but, for the speed-thirsty Chinese, thats worth every cent of the $ 1.5 billion it cost to build.
Back in 1978, there were 128,210 highway bridges in China, with a total length of 3,283 km. Today, there are over 600,000, with a combined length of some 26,000 km, and the number keeps growing all the time. Are the Chinese crazy
, as some quarters would have us believe? I dont think so. When the purpose is to shrink distances, banish sloth, and get the entire country, not just parts of it, to function as a close-knit, interactive economic neighbourhood, anything goes, and should.
Where does India stand against all this, given its ambition to be counted among five most powerful nations in the world by 2020? As of this moment, all it has is not even a thousand kilometres of pedigree expressways, and all it can show for the future is a hope just a hope that this figure could be wished to rise to 18,637 km by 2022, at the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan. Yes, there are national highways, some 70,900 km of them, but these are mostly two-to-four-lane roads open to all kinds of infiltrations, where speeds vary widely from stretch to stretch, even slump to a crawl at times, and accidents are always waiting to happen.
You figure out the answer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barun Roy: Honey, we've shrunk China | Business Standard
While India can only 'hope' to become a superpower, China already has in place a web of railways and expressways - that's only getting denser
The significance of Chinas latest bullet train connecting Beijing and Guangzhou, across 2,298 km of territory, is not simply that its the longest high-speed railway in the world, but that it brings two distant growth regions of the country closer than ever before. Hurtling at an average speed of 300 km per hour, the new trains will cut travel time between the two places from over 20 hours to less than eight.
Why is speed important? It shrinks space, breaks down isolation, opens up opportunities and strengthens togetherness. It enhances the value of time as an economic input. It spreads growth around and lends a sense of purpose to where one wants to go. Above all, it makes connectivity more efficient and productive, and connectivity is as important an element of nationhood as geography, language, culture, and tradition. Not all nations realise this. India certainly doesnt. China supremely does.
Just imagine. Chinas first high-speed railway, linking Beijing and Tianjin, went into service only in 2008. In the four years since then, its bullet network has grown to more than 9,300 km. By 2015, when the country will have around 120,000 km of railways in operation, 18,000 km of high-speed lines will be in place, with trains running at 300 km per hour, in addition to an express railway network of 40,000 km supporting speeds of 160 km per hour or more. The intention is to build a grid of high-speed lines running north to south and east to west, and a full complement of connectors in between, to bind the entire country more tightly together.
But high-speed trains are only one part of the story. The bigger part is the amazing spread of Chinas expressways that now form the worlds largest freeway network, surpassing the 75,932-km US interstate system that till now had been the global topper. At the end of 2012, the Chinese expressway network stood at around 96,000 km. Back only 16 years ago, in 1996, that figure was 3,200 km. In 1988, when expressways entered Beijings list of priorities, it was a paltry 147 km. If this growth sounds like a crazy blitzkrieg, remember that its the crazy who act and achieve; its the lazy who slog and survive.
As it now stands, the network has seven radial expressways taking off from Beijing, nine vertical expressways going from north to south, 18 horizontal expressways heading west to east, plus connecting expressways and regional/metropolitan ring expressways, forming a vast web thats getting denser and denser. Only motor vehicles are allowed on these freeways and they cant be slower than 70 km per hour or faster than 120. No traffic lights impede traffic flow, and cross traffic is always grade-separated.
Then, there are the bridges. All over the country, thousands of new bridges are being built every year, across rivers, lakes, gorges, canyons, and even seas, to cut distances, provide links, and bring new communities into the mainstream of economic activity. In the Yangtze and Pearl River deltas, bridges have helped the creation of vast economic zones, easing the movement of goods and people between hubs.
When growth is on the rise and has to be maintained, even a 20-minute saving on commuting time is considered worth spending millions on a new bridge. The 42-km Jiaozhou Bay Bridge, opened in June 2011 and still the longest over-water road bridge in the world, shaves just 30.5 km off the distance from Qingdao to Huangdao, but, for the speed-thirsty Chinese, thats worth every cent of the $ 1.5 billion it cost to build.
Back in 1978, there were 128,210 highway bridges in China, with a total length of 3,283 km. Today, there are over 600,000, with a combined length of some 26,000 km, and the number keeps growing all the time. Are the Chinese crazy
, as some quarters would have us believe? I dont think so. When the purpose is to shrink distances, banish sloth, and get the entire country, not just parts of it, to function as a close-knit, interactive economic neighbourhood, anything goes, and should.Where does India stand against all this, given its ambition to be counted among five most powerful nations in the world by 2020? As of this moment, all it has is not even a thousand kilometres of pedigree expressways, and all it can show for the future is a hope just a hope that this figure could be wished to rise to 18,637 km by 2022, at the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan. Yes, there are national highways, some 70,900 km of them, but these are mostly two-to-four-lane roads open to all kinds of infiltrations, where speeds vary widely from stretch to stretch, even slump to a crawl at times, and accidents are always waiting to happen.
You figure out the answer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barun Roy: Honey, we've shrunk China | Business Standard
