Rapid transit in the People's Republic of China encompasses a broad range of urban and suburban electric passenger rail mass transit systems including subway, light rail, tram and even maglev. Some classifications also include non-rail bus rapid transport. Several Chinese cities had urban electrical tramways in the early 20th century, which were dismantled in the 1950s. Nanjing had an urban railway from 1907 to 1958. The first subway in China was built in Beijing in 1969. The Tianjin Metro followed in 1984. China’s largest urban metro system is located in Shanghai which is also the longest network in the world, where the first metro line opened in 1995. Since 2000, the growth of rapid transit systems in Chinese cities has accelerated. From 2009 to 2015, China plans to build 87 mass transit rail lines, totaling 2,495 km, in 25 cities at the cost of ¥988.6 billion. As of 2012, China averages 270km of new rapid transit mileage. Hong Kong’s MTR was developed autonomously by the Hong Kong Colonial Government. The MTR now has investment and management stakes in the rapid transit systems of several mainland Chinese cities.
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“Missionaries, whether of philosophy or religion, rarely make rapid way, unless their preachings fall in with the prepossessions of the multitude of shallow thinkers, or can be made to serve as a stalking-horse for the promotion of the practical aims of the still larger multitude, who do not profess to think much, but are quite certain they want a great deal.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“My esoteric doctrine, is that if you entertain any doubt, it is safest to take the unpopular side in the first instance. Transit from the unpopular, is easy ... but from the popular to the unpopular is so steep and rugged that it is impossible to maintain it.”
—William Lamb Melbourne, 2nd Viscount (1779–1848)
“When people get old and pearls get yellow, neither are worth much.”
—Chinese proverb.
“I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man’s virtues the means of deceiving him.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“The roof of England fell
Great Paris tolled her bell
And China staunched her milk and wept for bread”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)