A Transportation Revolution - Research Paper Example

These concepts have been applied in a range of areas in Beijing. When it comes to Beijing’s transport system, there have been numerous suggestions proposed with the aim of improving Beijing’s transport conditions. Some of these proposals are revolutionary in China’s transport context as they would bring new, sweeping changes.  Background and Context  Beijing is the capital city of People e’s Republic of China and one of the four municipalities of China. Beijing has been the national capital in China’s last two imperial dynasties, the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Since 1949, the Chinese communist government spent much effort in transforming the city into the nation’s administrative headquarters and a large modern industrial concentred the socialist government, Beijing from 1949 to 1992 (especially before 1978) has been branded by the ‘socialist model’ in urban transport development. According to a study on the tranche asportations story of former Soviet bloc countries by Victor Sit three basic principles characterize the transport model.

Firstly, the journey-to-work should be minimized, secondly, spatial mobility should generally utilize the public transport facilities and thirdly, public transport fares are to be heavily subsidized. The year 1978 has been generally acknowledged as very significant which marked a shift in ideology in the communist history of China. In 1978, during the Third Plenary Session of 11the the decentralises Committee (C.C. Pchairmanman Deng, Xiaoping argued that China was in the primary stage of socialism and was vital to introduce the so-called "socialism with Chinese Characteristics" concept to the country (Sun, 1990).

Since 1978, China has adopted a new Open Door and Reform strategy of development and economy with more emphasis on generating sufficient surplus revenue. Moreover, it aimed to develop part of the economic reform strategy which envisages, “encircling the cities from rural areas,” that weightage developing industry and economy from rural first (Sun, 1990). On the other hand, it can be noted that a greater part of the rural population has moved to urban areas. The Chinese economic reform movement has greatly promoted a rapid urbanization era in China.