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  • The Chinese aren’t just flying in record numbers, theyre falling in love all over

  • again with the preferred method of travel in the 20th century, as hundreds of millions

  • of Chinese acquire middle class status and the extra income to afford cars. This is presenting

  • a relatively new challenge: heavy congestion on their motorways. So to tackle this problem,

  • China has set itself apart from the rest of the world by embracing high speed rail at

  • a breakneck pace. It’s goal to build a system with more than 35,000 kilometers of track

  • is now more than half complete, making it one of the most expensive megaprojects in

  • history.

  • The other reason behind this plan is to allow people to commute to work from much farther

  • distances than they could than if they had to drive, making high speed rail the key to

  • urbanization. And because China has as much high speed rail as every other country combined,

  • it will have more and more of the world’s largest cities.

  • In fact, of the top 10 urban areas on Earth with more than 20 million people, three of

  • them are in Chinaand those cities are growing so fast that two of the three weren’t in

  • the top 10 last year.

  • The explosion in high speed rail in China is especially mind-blowing when you consider

  • that it was first introduced there in 2007, that’s less than a decade ago. Since then,

  • daily ridership has grown from 237,000 to over 2.5 million.

  • To accommodate all those passengers, it’s Railway Ministry has swelled, and now has

  • the same number of employees as there are civilians working for the entire United States

  • government.

  • China got to this point under the heavy-handed leadership of Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun,

  • orGreat Leap Liu,” who pushed his patriotic workers in shifts around the clock to plan

  • and build rail lines as fast as possible. He famously said, “to achieve a great leap,

  • a generation must be sacrificed.” Liu meant his workers, but when a poorly designed signaling

  • system caused a dramatic crash on a viaduct high above a valley in 2011, it was clear

  • that some of the first generation of passengers would be sacrificed as well.

  • News anchor: “China’s railway system has been plagued with problems including corruption

  • and quality concerns. Authorities have come under fire for the way theyve handled the

  • accident, especially when they buried several carriages before carrying out an investigation.”

  • Bryce: But, despite the 40 deaths - and more than 200 injuries - in the Wenzhou train collision,

  • the attempts of the government to cover the disaster up, and Great Leap Liu’s subsequent

  • fall from grace, the high speed rail boom in China has roared on and the system is now

  • considered to be among the safest modes of transportation in the entire world.

  • It also leads the globe in annual ridership, has the longest single service at 2,400 km

  • from Harbin to Wuhan and has the fastest commercially operated train with peak speeds of 430 km/h.

  • Now, having successfully linked up much of its own country with high speed rail, China

  • aims to do the same for the rest of the world. It is building systems in Turkey, Saudi Arabia,

  • and South America, and is bidding on projects in Russia, Brazil, Myanmar, and the United

  • States.

  • Thank you very much for tuning in. Until next time, for The Daily Conversation, I’m Bryce

  • Plank.

The Chinese aren’t just flying in record numbers, theyre falling in love all over

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