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The rapid urbanization, motorization, and economic growth in China over the past three decades have resulted in severe traffic congestion, air pollution, and urban sprawl. Despite recent efforts to provide "cleaner" automobiles, the authors conclude that public transportation holds the key to China's urban sustainability, given the country's continuing urbanization and motorization processes.
Introduction
The rapid pace of growth of China is unprecedented. Coupled with its sheer size (more than 1.3 billion inhabitants in 2010), the fast growth makes China an important player in the world community. In terms of gross domestic product (GDP), it is the second economy in the world, after the United States, with its GDP increasing more than twentyfold from US$268 billion in 1978 to US$5,900 billion in 2010. Chinas real per capita income has more than quadrupled between 1980 and 2010.1
At the same time, the rapid growth has resulted in tremendous problems and challenges to China and to the world. Rapid urbanization and motorization have included substantial migration from the rural area to the cities. The urbanization rate has increased from 18 percent in 1978 to 47 percent in 2009. By the end of 2011, more than 50 percent of the Chinese population will be urban residents, putting tremendous pressure on the urban infrastructure. Rapid motorization is another direct result of higher income. Since 1990, the total number of motor vehicles in China has increased more than twentyfold, from 5.54 million in 1990 to 105.78 million in 201 1.1
The combination of urbanization and motorization has led to alarming increases in traffic congestion, traffic deaths and injuries, air pollution, noise, and energy consumption, accompanied by the urban sprawl in the megacity areas. Leaders of most Chinese cities are facing the daunting challenges of meeting the ever- increasing demand for mobility while working to reduce air pollution and energy consumption without hampering economic growth, and have gradually come to realize that they cannot build their way out of congestion with additional roadways - public transportation is the only real solution to their problems.
This paper presents the triple bottom line issues of economy, environment, and equity of sustainability that shape the urban public transportation system in China. It first provides a root cause of urban transportation problems: the rapid...