1 February 2013: The World Resources Institute’s EMBARQ Center for Sustainable Transport, a member of the Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT), has released its China Transportation Briefing for 2013 through the online blog TheCityFix. The briefing identifies five trends affecting urban transport in China: urban rail expansion; increased air pollution; a private car ban; a biking renaissance; and multi-modal integration.

The first trend is continued metro expansion in Chinese cities, with an additional 2,500 kilometers expected as part of a 5-year plan. The second trend is continued air pollution within a nation-wide “air quality crisis,” with efforts to relieve emissions on the local level. The third trend is that cities will implement car restrictions in response to congestion and air pollution. The fourth predicted trend is a biking renaissance, as supported by the scaling-up of bikeshare programs in China. The fifth trend is for multi-modal integration whereby cities will integrate transportation modes, as demonstrated by Guangzhou’s bikeshare system integrating with its bus and metro networks.

The briefing states that great investments have been made by China to invest in an expanding urban railway, and cities are reassessing the role of private vehicles. It concludes with “reason to believe that China could make a difference and find a different motorization way to move people.”

SLoCaT is a voluntary multi-stakeholder initiative that contributes to the implementation of Agenda 21, Rio+5 and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI). This initiative of over 58 organizations is registered with the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), and has the objective of improving knowledge on sustainable low carbon transport to help develop better policies and catalyze their implementation. [China Transportation Briefing Part One] [China Transportation Briefing Part Two]