What’s Shanghai’s effective urban transport policy in the period of rapid growth? Pan Haixiao, Professor E-mail: hxpank@online.sh.cn Ye Song Research Assistant, Email: jiangxixu@126.com Department of Urban Planning, Tongji University 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China
Abstract With the rapid economic development, the scale of Shanghai in population and territory experienced a fast expansion in last 20 years. With very poor urban transport infrastructure in late 1980‟s and lack of enough resource and land to build more road space as in Beijing, some fundamental common consensus has been realized in various government departments, that is car use must be controlled in Shanghai, even though car manufacture industry has been designated as one of the growth pillar of Shanghai‟s economic development. But we must find an alternative urban passenger transport solution to support urban expansion and economic activities with convenience and reliability. In this paper, Shanghai urban transport infrastructure and mobility characteristics will be presented, such as modal split, travel time and distance, metro passenger and car ownership etc, after more than two decades of massive construction in urban transport system. In 2002 Shanghai government issued the first urban transport white paper in China after 5 years discussion and negotiation between stakeholder, especially various government department. This the first time in China that shows urban transport policy is the major focus of mayor‟s concern. In this white paper, Shanghai‟s urban transport policy has been developed in nine directions which include: 1) Control on motorized vehicle: Motorized vehicles have made negative effect on road space and environment; government in Shanghai has taken measures to control traffic demand, such as license auction and parking management. 2) Continue to strengthen key transport infrastructure construction: For recent years, the transport demands of Shanghai have rapidly increased, urban transport facilities is highly saturated, roads are severely congested. Shanghai strengthened construction of transport infrastructure in urban motorway, freeway and bridge etc. 3) Coordinate relationship between urban land use and transport: The Shanghai always try to strengthen control in spatial planning and urban transport system.