ABSTRACT
In China the bicycle is the main means of urban transportation. Tianjin, which relies on non-motorised vehicles for four out often person-trips, instead has high mobility, few traffic congestion problems, very low traffic accident rates, very low public and personal cash expenditures with only modest time expenditures for transport. The drive for personal mechanised transport, whatever its underlying causes, appears to all intents and purposes to be universal and China’s cities are unlikely to be any exception. A survey by Beijing Public Transport Corporation in 1986 found that door to door journey speeds by bicycle were almost double those by bus. As economic transformation proceeds, so the demand for urban transport is evolving. Some estimates of how these changes may affect travel patterns have been offered by the Beijing Transport Planning Study. China’s urban transport dilemmas may be distinctive in their details but in their underlying nature they are familiar enough.
