Chinese subway crazy expansion（二）
Promulgator
：LX Time：2019-04-30
The rail transit system is regarded by the Chinese as a symbol of urban modernization, and the construction of the subway has become the goal pursued by the local government. In 1991, Chongqing built subway lines on the basis of the original civil air defense project. In 1994, Qingdao also set up a company to start construction of the subway test section.
However, due to the extremely high cost of the subway at that time, it brought a huge financial burden to the local government, which was still very weak at the time. In 1995, the State Council issued a document to suspend the approval of the subway project in addition to the two subway projects under construction in Beijing and Guangzhou and the Shanghai Metro Line 2 project, and the subway projects in Tianjin, Qingdao, Nanjing and other cities that originally approved the project and the Shenyang Light Rail. The project should stop signing the contract.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the subway boom came back. Major cities across the country, including Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shenyang, Qingdao, Xi'an, Chongqing, and Chengdu, have all proposed ambitious subway construction plans. The result is exactly the same as before. In October 2002, the State Council requested that “the matter of project approval should not be discussed first. The key issue at present is to investigate in detail the construction of subways in China”.
The subway project has great financial pressure on the local government. The initial investment is not a small amount. Usually, the cost per kilometer of rail transit is 600-700 million yuan. In recent years, the cost of the 14th, 15th, and 18th lines in Shanghai has even exceeded 1 billion. yuan.
Subsequent operations are also a problem. According to the China Urban Rail Transit Association, as of the end of 2016, only six cities including Shenzhen, Wuhan, Kunming, Shenyang, Guangzhou and Hefei achieved balance of payments, while 24 cities operated at a loss, the national rail transit. The overall revenue of the system is only 77.7% of the expenditure. Take Shanghai as an example. In 2016, the Shanghai government gave financial subsidies to the rail transit system more than 1.5 billion yuan.
