China G6

[SP Cook]

http://www.economist.com/news/china/21568755-china-building-motorway-across-tibetan-plateau-some-reaching-lhasa-road

Interesting article on Chinese roadgeeking.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

No date has been set for extending the G6 into Tibet, but work has recently begun on building a 400km link from west of Qinghai Lake to Golmud, the last big town before the Tibetan border and the tundra beyond. It is due for completion in three years, at a cost of $1.6 billion. A middle-class dream of Lhasa by expressway is very much in the making.

Article is from last Saturday. So this statement is wrong, since they have already opened the G6 expressway to Golmud except for a couple sections around Qinghai lake. I'm awaiting for the day G6 arrives to Lhasa, since it will reach 5400 meters (ca. 17700 ft) above sea level. Currently the record is hold by a motorway-like road in La Paz, Bolivia capital, which is at 4000 meters (ca. 13100 ft).

[mc78andrew]

The same edition of the economist had an interesting article on Mumbai's transportation challenges.  It's worth reading, but I do not have the link.  Can someone please post it?

[Chris]

The Indian highway network is far less advanced than the Chinese system. Mumbai does have a number of freeways, but the arterial road network is underdeveloped. The main problem for India is that cities are growing at a much faster rate than they can provide infrastructure. The Chinese are alleviating that by building a massive new expressway system that grows over 6,000 miles per year. Furthermore Chinese urban expansion projects are of much higher standard than in India. Most new urban developments in China are masterplanned with multilane arterials, often in a grid network. There is no such thing in India, where they will have to spend incredible amounts of money on acquiring right-of-ways in the coming decades.

[mgk920]

The Indian highway network is far less advanced than the Chinese system. Mumbai does have a number of freeways, but the arterial road network is underdeveloped. The main problem for India is that cities are growing at a much faster rate than they can provide infrastructure. The Chinese are alleviating that by building a massive new expressway system that grows over 6,000 miles per year. Furthermore Chinese urban expansion projects are of much higher standard than in India. Most new urban developments in China are masterplanned with multilane arterials, often in a grid network. There is no such thing in India, where they will have to spend incredible amounts of money on acquiring right-of-ways in the coming decades.

China is also wholesale clearing 'medieval' older parts of their cities, with their random street layouts and so forth, and replacing them with those grids of master-planned major thoroughfares, local streets, commercial developments and commieblock residential buildings, not so much in the central Beijing area (at least not yet), but on a truly massive scale in their other cities.  To go over Google aerial images of China is an eye-opener into the breathtaking scale and pace of what they are all doing.



Mike

[3467]

http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20130101/105096.shtml

Dish carries CCTV . They run a short video showing roads and skyscrapers.live coverage of the new HSR opening. Its run by engineers ie a country run by infrastructure geeks but....

though everything is new you have to wonder about the quaility. Bejings old sewer system handled last years floods just fine the new one drowned a whole bunch

Warning ...if that is the video they aired on TV they show real accident victims still.