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.
Famous quotes containing the words rapid, transit, people, republic and/or china:
“In a time of confusion and rapid change like the present, when terms are continually turning inside out and the names of things hardly keep their meaning from day to day, it’s not possible to write two honest paragraphs without stopping to take crossbearings on every one of the abstractions that were so well ranged in ornate marble niches in the minds of our fathers.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“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)
“Trouble doesn’t seek people; people seek trouble.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Paper is cheap, and authors need not now erase one book before they write another. Instead of cultivating the earth for wheat and potatoes, they cultivate literature, and fill a place in the Republic of Letters. Or they would fain write for fame merely, as others actually raise crops of grain to be distilled into brandy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance.”
—Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989)