While the United States has allocated $13 billion for the construction of high-speed rail over the next five years, China plans to spend $300 billion in the next decade to build the most extensive and advanced high-speed rail network in the world.
By 2012, China plans to have almost three dozen high-speed rail lines crisscrossing the country. Nearly 130,000 workers are now building the Beijing-to-Shanghai line, which at $32 billion will be China's most expensive construction project ever. The frenzy of construction is at the heart of China's massive fiscal stimulus to revive the economy.
Is it Affordable?
Ticket prices have been set at 780 Yuan ($115) for first class and 490 Yuan for second. The country's airlines, which like the railway are mostly state-owned, have responded by slashing fares to undercut those for the new train, with China Southern Airlines, based in Guangzhou, offering tickets for advance purchase starting at Rmb250 and introducing hourly flights.
Huang Xin, head of passenger services for Guangzhou Railway Group, said on the inaugural ride that pricing might have to be adjusted.
Even the second-class fares may prove too rich for the biggest pool of potential passengers for the line, the estimated 20m workers in the Pearl River delta manufacturing belt around Guangzhou who hail from inland provinces. About half of them usually return home during the Chinese new year holiday in the world's biggest human migration. The round-trip express fare is priced at about two-thirds of an average factory worker's monthly wage.
Is it Green?
Some critics have argued that the bullet trains are overkill, and that what China really needs is affordable transportation for the masses.
"High-speed rail can ease our transportation bottlenecks," says Xie Weida, a railway expert at Shanghai’s Tongji University. "Migrant workers may not require high-speed trains, but if some passengers take the high-speed trains, that should relieve pressure on the ordinary ones."
Of course, that scenario will only work if the number of regular trains stays the same or increases.
China's leaders say their country will not follow the West's path of development — sacrificing the environment in order to industrialize. China's investment in high-speed rail is a part of this strategy, says Xie Weida.
"To solve the problem of public transportation in such a vast country," Xie argues, "rail transport is the only way to go. If we rely on airplanes and automobiles like the U.S., neither China nor the world will be able to handle such energy consumption."
What do you think? Can high-speed trains help China with its transportation problem or is it another high cost endeavor that benefits few?
2 years, 1 month ago
the cost of these trains is near the cost of flying. Even if it is speedier than normal train I would still take the airplane.