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 China—and 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,

or “Great 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 they’ve 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.