China’s Investment in Subways Puts the U.S. to Shame

In America, we spend tens of billions of dollars on transportation infrastructure each year — mostly on roads that induce driving and traffic, increase carbon emissions, and claim a shocking number of lives. The nation’s political leadership is currently dithering about how to pay for a $200 billion infrastructure package that promises more business-as-usual spending. And the Trump White House is withholding funds for transit expansion projects across the country for ideological reasons.

Meanwhile, China is currently in the midst of the most ambitious subway construction boom the world has ever seen. The implications for the future of the country — as well as the global climate — are huge. Yonah Freemark at the Transport Politic takes a look at the dizzying pace of rapid transit expansion in dozens of Chinese cities:

Obviously, one reason China is able to pull off a massive infrastructure initiative like this is its top-down one-party dictatorship. But messy American democracy has managed to build large-scale public works before. Today, however, austerity and anti-urbanism define federal policy here, and high costs inhibit what cities can do on their own. In the “act of comparison” to China, Freemark says, “the illness of American planning is made apparent.”

More recommended reading today: The Urban Edge explains how millennial migration has reshaped downtown Phoenix and Houston, and why those sustaining that growth might be a challenge. And the Tampa Bay Times says bus rapid transit could be the answer to the region’s mobility problems — but not if it gets watered down.