China goes crazy, opens 600 miles of expressway on a single day

Started by CNGL-Leudimin, December 30, 2013, 03:16:03 PM

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CNGL-Leudimin

Title says all. Today, 600 new expressway miles were open to traffic in China. In the whole month of December, almost 2,000 expressway miles have been put into operation. A whole page of Skyscrapercity's thread Motorway openings around the world is full of Chinese openings. Chris has listed every new section there.

But this is only what they have opened now. Back in May, they revised the national expressway plan, and now they are going to build this (Map by Alan Fan Pei, taken from Wikipedia):


And that is only the G (national) expressways, they have also S (provincial) expressways, so the network will be much more denser than the map shows.
Supporter of the construction of several running gags, including I-366 with a speed limit of 85 mph (137 km/h) and the Hypotenuse.

Please note that I may mention "invalid" FM channels, i.e. ending in an even number or down to 87.5. These are valid in Europe.


sammi

I find it interesting that they have plans to build (or is it already there?) an expressway to Taibei (台北).

seicer

Is there an English map of this, or overlaid onto something more legible? Interesting map. Seeing how they are rapidly expanding their high speed and medium speed rail lines at record breaking paces...

NE2

pre-1945 Florida route log

I accept and respect your identity as long as it's not dumb shit like "identifying as a vaccinated attack helicopter".

mc78andrew

http://money.cnn.com/news/economy/china-world-growth/?iid=EL

Growing your income by 10 times over 20 years spread out over 1B plus people is the most impressive poverty elimination success story in the history of the world.  If they can smooth out the rough edges such as massively polluting, propping up North Korea, oppressing Tibet and threatening japan, their success in the next 20 years will dwarf that of the past 20 years. 

All of these debt fueled parties come to an end someday though...hopefully they have built some assets that will help them generate a better life over the long term.  Roads should be one of those assets.  This many though is questionable. 

english si

Quote from: mc78andrew on December 31, 2013, 10:23:55 PMGrowing your income by 10 times over 20 years spread out over 1B plus people is the most impressive poverty elimination success story in the history of the world.
Except that it isn't. Especially in rural areas, there is masses of poverty and little change in that. The Mandarins in many rural areas don't care about economic growth, but rather employment - a US economist went over there and was talking to some officials who oversee a rice-growing area. When he suggested various labor-saving devices, to allow the money made of the rice to be divvied up among less so as to allow the other paddy field workers to work in other lines of business, selling stuff to the richer rice farmers, themselves getting richer as their produce could also be sold elsewhere. He then made the mistake of saying that their trowels (for slaving away) should be turned into spoons (for consuming). The mandarins' eyes lit up at the mention of spoons - they could have more people working on the paddy field if they used less efficient tools! </facepalm>.

OK, even in those unfortunate areas, they aren't starving, but they are very far from getting richer! The big cities, on the other hand...

mc78andrew

That 10 times figure is an average, so there are some that grew by more and many who grew by less. 

Funny thing about capitalism is that when the pie grows everyone gets more, but not in equal share.  The alternative is no growth and a few elite hoarding what scarce resources there are while the masses stay very poor.  A few places have tried to turn back the clock, Cuba is a great example.  If that's the model then god bless.  Otherwise, ask those 100MM Chinese what it now feels like to be middle class as opposed to a rice farmer with a spoon or anything else.  It's not perfect, but alternatives that make most amount of people better off do not exist. 

I am sure those that are comfortable in central Florida or the UK disagree though, which is easy to do with the benefits of such a system as a tailwind. I know the scandies have a model of successful socialism, but I don't see them breaking groud on new technology other Ikea.  Again, the system is not perfect, but it moves the ball the best.  The Chinese are going to pose a credible threat to American hegemony very soon...who would have thought that 20 years ago and I doubt they would be able to do so with any other system.  It's rather remarkable how new wealth can be generated and shared among hundred of millions of people, albeit unequally. 

Probably a topic for another thread or even forum. 

All that said, I'd like to go drive some of these roads someday.  I drove from Singapore to KL about 10 years ago...was an awesome experience.  Germany is on my next list of intl driving though for obvious reasons. 

english si

Quote from: mc78andrew on January 01, 2014, 02:50:54 PMFunny thing about capitalism is that when the pie grows everyone gets more, but not in equal share.
Yes, but the point I was making was that Capitalism (or even some semblance of understanding of it) has not spread to rural areas. It's not the "most impressive poverty elimination success story in the history of the world" if a very large minority are in deeper poverty due to the increase in wealth elsewhere while they remain constricted.

Anyway, here's this week's opening figures. Wednesday, Friday and yesterday brought figures that, on their own, would be noteworthy - but these have been eclipsed by Monday's figure.
25 Dec - 393km
26 Dec - 235km
27 Dec - 20km
28 Dec - 451km
30 Dec - 1064km
31 Dec - 462km

mc78andrew

You could make a similar point about rural areas in western economies too, although less extreme.  They have not benefited from the recent expansion in the last 30 years.  But that's focusing on the negatives only.  The size of the interstate highway system and the benefits it has created for millions outweigh the painful transition for those displaced by the system that created such a highway network.  The same applies in china.  Hopefully government transfers will help any pain or transition that needs to occur.

Is there a historical roll out schedule for the us interstate system from the 50s 60s and 70s? 


Chris

Quote from: mc78andrew on January 01, 2014, 04:24:45 PMIs there a historical roll out schedule for the us interstate system from the 50s 60s and 70s? 

http://www.publicpurpose.com/hwy-intmiles.htm

The most openings were in 1964, when close to 4,000 kilometers (2500 mi) opened to traffic in the U.S. This is half of what China opened this past year.

The U.S. opened 80% (58,000 kilometers) of the Interstate Highway network in 20 years time. However, China opened 80% (80,000 kilometers) in just 11 years.

China has currently more expressways than the United States, with circa 100,000 kilometers (give or take a few hundred km). The U.S. freeway system (including non-Interstate freeways and corrected for concurrencies) is 97,400 km. It's likely the first time since the 1940s that the United States does not have the largest freeway system in the world. (Germany had 3,900 km in 1943).



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