The national 14th Five-Year Plan Outline in China proposes that we should improve the development and growth of urban clusters and metropolitan areas, regarding urban areas as an important part of the spatial pattern strategy of urbanization. As one of the world’s largest, most dynamic and promising world-class city clusters, the Yangtze River Delta city clusters should play a leading role in rail ways and integrate with the concept of green and low carbon so as to create a comprehensive transportation system adapted to the world-class urban clusters and metropolitan areas.
Build an integrated modernization system in all aspects
“An Overall Plan of the Integrated Development of the Yangtze River Delta” proposes to “synergize the construction of integrated comprehensive transportation system”, and the Yangtze River Delta region should make efforts to be “globally open, efficient and convenient, green and ecological, safe and resilient”.
Internationally, it is necessary to build a world-class airport hub group, a seaport hub group and an intercontinental high-speed railway network to all continents, and to establish a developed and efficient collection and distribution network as well as a high-quality and efficient service system.
Domestically, it is necessary to build a cross-border comprehensive transportation system combined with the main axis of the Great Coastal, Great Riverside, Shanghai-Yinchuan, Shanghai-Shaanxi, Shanghai-Kunming and Shanghai-Guangzhou and other national integrated transport channels, and the hub of the airports, seaports, river ports and high-speed railway ports.
Regionally, it is necessary to build a regional comprehensive transportation system featuring with the multi-level, multi-model, multi-modal and synergistic integrated pattern with the backbone of high-speed railways, the trunk for regular trains, intercity railroads and highways in order to formulate Yangtze River Delta, the metropolitan areas and urban areas on track.
For urban and rural areas, it is necessary to take fast public transportation and fast roads as the backbones, public transportation plus walking plus bicycle transportation as the leading, to coordinate the development of various transportation models, and create green, intelligent, convenient and high-quality transportation systems and services.
Play the leading role of rail transportation
“An Overall Plan of the Integrated Development of the Yangtze River Delta” clearly puts forward the proposition and task of “building the Yangtze River Delta on track”. The overall goal is to form a multi-level, diversified, various and high-density rail transportation network including ultra-high-speed railways, highways and intercity railways, playing its leading role in the comprehensive three-dimensional transportation system in the Yangtze River Delta region.
We should form a one-day exchange circle of high-speed rail and super-high-speed rail between major city clusters. And we should build a one-day high-speed rail exchange circle between the world-level city clusters including the Yangtze River Delta, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and secondary city groups such as Tumen River, Liaoning central, and Bohai Rim. We hope that we can achieve 5 hours access between cities within 1000 km in the short term, 2-3 hours access between cities within 1000 km in the long term.
We should formulate the half-day exchange circle among urban clusters in the Yangtze River Delta through the intercity fast railroads directly. Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Hefei and other core cities in the metropolitan areas should achieve 0.5-1 hour direct high-speed railway access, to promote the synergistic development of all metropolitan areas. And we should build a fast intercity railways network between metropolitan areas’ centers and the metropolitan areas’ sub-centers and group centers, to achieve the central city and other counties and cities 1 hour high-speed railway access, and 85% of the Yangtze River Delta counties and cities 2 hours high-speed railway access, formulating the half-day communication circle of railway transportation of urban clusters in Yangtze River Delta.
We should build a one-hour commuting circle of rail transportation in the metropolitan areas with the integration of four networks. And we should build a multi-level rail transportation system with the core cities of Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Hefei, Suzhou, Wuxi and other major cities, and promote the integrated development of highways, intercity railroads, municipal (suburban) railroads and urban railroads in order to realize one-hour point-to-point convenient commuting in the metropolitan areas and support the close connection within the metropolitan cities.
TOD concept leads to reduce emissions at source
In the context of the “double carbon” target, the planning and construction of transportation systems in city clusters and metropolitan areas should incorporate with the green low-carbon concept, and give priority to public transportation.
Land use is the source of transportation demand, and land spatial planning should be based on public transportation to promote the construction of city belts, city clusters and metropolitan areas on track, and create public transportation cities, corridors, communities and buildings. Urban construction should follow the TOD concept, try to arrange more than 70% of the residential population, jobs and consumption attraction sources along the railway corridors and hubs within 500 meters, in order to reduce the total demand for long-distance motorized transportation travel across districts as much as possible. At the same time, we should create a 5-10 minutes convenient living circle for the residents’ daily life, to provide a friendly environment for slow and green travel.
To achieve green travel, cars must be scientifically controlled. Domestic and international experience of urban construction shows that car exhaust has become one of major factors of urban air pollution. On the one hand, we should increase the cost of car ownership, car use, parking and illegal behaviour through laws and regulations, economic leverage, regulation standards and other non-administrative means to reduce residents’ reliance on small car travel. On the other hand, we should improve road traffic order and efficiency through intelligent transportation, intelligent navigation and refined traffic design and other technical means.
Translated from: Traffic News in China