上交大高职《城市轨道交通客运服务英语》教学资料 阅读文章 The Rising Motorization of China.docVIP

The Rising Motorization of China China’s motorization rate has grown in accordance with other rapidly developing countries, but because of China’s high population, the impacts of motorization are potentially more severe. Figure 1 shows the exponential increase in personal automobile ownership rates. Currently, there are about seven personal automobiles per 1000 people, compared to over 700 vehicles per 1000 people in industrialized nations like the United States. This figure does not include privately owned trucks or publicly owned vehicles (including buses and trucks), which increases the number of automobiles to about 28 vehicles per 1000 people. If China were to achieve motorization rates comparable to those of developed countries, the environmental and economic consequences could be disastrous. By 2020, the total automobile fleet (not including motorcycles) is expected to grow by between three and seven times the current size depending on economic growth rates (NRC 2003). The population distribution of China is diverse, with the majority of the population (60%) living in rural areas. However, in the past several decades, the improved economic situation of the cities has caused a rapid urban in-migration. This trend has resulted in a nearly three-fold increase in urban development and density in the last decade as displayed in Figure 2. Much of this development is not necessarily representative of sustainable transit and pedestrian oriented growth. Although this new development is very dense, low land cost at the periphery cause developers to build spatially separated housing and commercial developments with few transit connections to the urban center (Gaukenheimer 1996). The western provinces are the most sparsely populated with the largest urban population centers located in provinces along the eastern coast, in metropolises such as Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. These cities have been experiencing high mot