China approves $73 billion worth subway projects

[AndrewJin]

some of my hometown: Ningbo city
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Ningbo is a beautiful and economically powerful city.
I have been to Ningbo many times, first time by traditional rail, second time by bus through trans-bay bridge on the sea, third time by HSR!

I think all prefecture-level cities in Zhejiang Province are qualified to metro,(heavy rail and light rail)
Even the city of Zhoushan on the island! (a light rail from west-most end to east-most end)

GDP per capita in Zhejiang Province ($)

 

[Shotgunner51]

some of my hometown: Ningbo city
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Great going Ningbo bro!

Well Ningbo is on the high-income eastern seaboard on which most cities have well developed metro systems, including Tianjin, Beijing, Shenzhen as reported in the OP, though expansion is still ongoing.

More expansion will happen in mid-western developing cities like where @AndrewJin is from.

China really tops the world in many fields ...not only in the metro but also in the wind energy installations and their progress is mind boggling. Just in 5 years, from zero to the global leader in wind energy installation.

Thanks for the compliments! Despite all numbers seen so far, the scale is huge only because of our population, geography, are bigger than average-sized country. China is still developing, since on a per capita basis, on density measurement, our metro scale is still far behind Japan (777 km) & South Korea (733 km).

A lot more new metro lines are developing as we speak, for mid-western cities in particular. Pakistan will join the development once market conditions (e.g. GDP, government revenue, population density) are ready e.g. a booming Karachi and cities along CPEC, since tech & monetary capital are not a problem for CN-PK consortium, good luck bro!

 

[AndrewJin]

I will be back when the wuhan subway complished in 2017.

Currently, metro construction is everywhere, terrible jams everywhere!
Roads are already narrow, plus the construction sites.
Good news is Metro Line 3 will be open this December.
But I'm not sure if Metro Line6 can be finished on time in 2016 as they planned.
The mayor promised one new line every year since 2013.
However land acquisition is quite slow and compensation fee is rising like rockets.
(already 20,000yuan/$3200 per m2 for an apartment in my neighbourhood)

 

[CHN Bamboo]

Traffic jams everywhere.
China has too many big cities, more than 100 cities with population more than 1 million !!!
According to Europa's metro design, some city has a metro system when the population is less than one million.

Tomorrow I'll go to Hunan Province for national holiday.
Changsha only has one metro line so far, painful!

View attachment 261114

WTF?Travel???

 

[AndrewJin]

WTF?Travel???

One million is considered as the benchmark for a city qualified to have a metro system.
However, China's Central government has set a minimum requirement

Subway
1, at least 3 million people in downtown;
2, GDP 100 billion yuan (GDP per capita $5300 at least)
3, annual general budge revenue 10 billion yuan

Light rail
1, at least 1.5 million people in downtown
2, GDP 60 billion yuan (GDP per capita $6300 at least)
3, annual general budge revenue 6 billion yuan

This outdated conservative requirement should be abolished!
Very few cities have GDP per capita lower than $5000 in China.
However, this rigid downtown population restriction is absurd!

 

[steelseries779]

China metro length expected to reach 3500km at the end of 2015

 

[Shotgunner51]

View attachment 261163

China metro length expected to reach 3500km at the end of 2015

3500 km by this year end? Good progress! That's near half of the 7300 km approved by State Council.

However if using South Korea as a benchmark, it has 733 km, with 4% of our population, 1% of our landmass. The National Plan of 7300 km is still modest.

Let's build Metros! Cars are NOT for commuting but for fun, leisure & sports!

 

[Aepsilons]

Ningbo is a beautiful and economically powerful city.
I have been to Ningbo many times, first time by traditional rail, second time by bus through trans-bay bridge on the sea, third time by HSR!

I think all prefecture-level cities in Zhejiang Province are qualified to metro,(heavy rail and light rail)
Even the city of Zhoushan on the island! (a light rail from west-most end to east-most end)

GDP per capita in Zhejiang Province ($)
View attachment 261162

One of the richest provinces in China, and probably the most culturally similar to Japanese as well.

 

[AndrewJin]

One of the richest provinces in China, and probably the most culturally similar to Japanese as well.

And very harmoniously developed, every prefecture-level cities are rich, unlike Guangdong.

 

[Aepsilons]

some of my hometown: Ningbo city
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Astounding!!

Wait, you're Zhejiangese?

And very harmoniously developed, every prefecture-level cities are rich, unlike Guangdong.

Well Zhejiang is the center of Wu culture and ancient lect, so that should be understood since it is the epicenter of the cultural dissemination around the Greater East Asian Sphere. I suppose that is what makes Zheijiang truly paramount in that tho it has incorporated many western or "modern" amenities, the province and the people in that province still speak their local dialect and practice ancient customs. Even in Zhejiang they carry the babies a particular way that is similar to how Japanese mothers carry babies. I noticed this when i was walking and strolling through the parks in Ningbo back in 2013. I couldn't help but smile.

They even speak almost like Japanese people , well their tone is similar to spoken Japanese phonology.

 

[AndrewJin]

Astounding!!

Wait, you're Zhejiangese?



Well Zhejiang is the center of Wu culture and ancient lect, so that should be understood since it is the epicenter of the cultural dissemination around the Greater East Asian Sphere. I suppose that is what makes Zheijiang truly paramount in that tho it has incorporated many western or "modern" amenities, the province and the people in that province still speak their local dialect and practice ancient customs. Even in Zhejiang they carry the babies a particular way that is similar to how Japanese mothers carry babies. I noticed this when i was walking and strolling through the parks in Ningbo back in 2013. I couldn't help but smile.

They even speak almost like Japanese people , well their tone is similar to spoken Japanese phonology.

Every people speak local dialect except new comers.
Now I can understand 90% of Wu and Shanghainese.
But not Wenzhou dialect.
Zhejiang's dialects are very diverse.
I'm sure people in Ningbo cannot understand any Wenzhou dialect, although it takes only 2 hours by HSR.

Back to topic, I'm happy to see metro construction is no longer confined in first-tier cites.
But the speed should be faster, investments per km are increasing rapidly year after year.

I'll be in Changsha this National Day holiday.
Let's see how their metro is, only one line though.

 

[Aepsilons]

Every people speak local dialect except new comers.
Now I can understand 90% of Wu and Shanghainese.
But not Wenzhou dialect.
Zhejiang's dialects are very diverse.

You're right Andrew, Zhejiang's dialects are very vast and diverse. A friend of mine who is a professor at a university in Shanghai had explained to me some of the uniqueness of prefectural dialects in the province, for one, is the 温州话 , which is spoken in the prefecture of Wenzhou, a southern prefecture of Zhejiang. My friend is actually from Wenzhou and his dialect is very similar to the syntax and phonology of southwestern Japanese dialect(s). In fact the way they speak is similar to 中国方言 -- we call this Chugoku Hogen -- a family of dialects spoken in Southwestern Honshu. Some phrases are similar also to 豊日方言 -- Honichi Hogen --- this is a dialect spoken in Western Kyushu Region.

Btw, Chugoku dialect and Honichi dialect are considered very "Chinese" sounding, it is very unique to Standard Japanese.

I suppose these regions' proximity to coastal China , particularly Zhejiang and Quanzhou had led to some significant direct Chinese influence.

 

[badguy2000]

I live in a prefecture with ZIP code 0797.
the prefecture has a population of 9M+ .
Its capital is the second biggest city in Jiangxi Province and as a urban population of nearly 1M .

in the coming 10 years, the population of the prefecture capital might increase to 2M ,I do think it will have to build subway too soon.

Considering there are hundreds of cities like the prefecture capital and need subway soon.

So, CHina still has a huge demand of subway and other infrastructures.

anyhow, before CHinese life standard catuch up with west one, CHina sitll has huge growth potential.

 

[AndrewJin]

I live in a prefecture with ZIP code 0797.
the prefecture has a population of 9M+ .
Its capital is the second biggest city in Jiangxi Province and as a urban population of nearly 1M .

in the coming 10 years, the population of the prefecture capital might increase to 2M ,I do think it will have to build subway too soon.

Considering there are hundreds of cities like the prefecture capital and need subway soon.

So, CHina still has a huge demand of subway and other infrastructures.

anyhow, before CHinese life standard catuch up with west one, CHina sitll has huge growth potential.

Ganzhou?
Of course, at least light rails and trams.
The rigid restriction on metro construction will be removed as I said before.

 

[Shotgunner51]

Ganzhou?
Of course, at least light rails and trams.
The rigid restriction on metro construction will be removed as I said before.

Yes bro, the rigid pre-requisites for subway investment (GDP, density, etc) should only apply to governance of public capital, and be relaxed for the private sector. For some second tier cities, PPP (Public-Private-Partnership; Examples BOT, DBO, BOO) should be encouraged for infrastructure investment.

The recent news about investment by XpressWest-CRRC, a private consortium, on California's first HSR, is a good reference. Not a dollar from taxpayers will be invested.

I look forward to real estate developers (e.g. Dalian Wanda Group) getting involved in infrastructure investment, elevating themselves to city or ecosystem developers.