[sustran] Fwd: China & India today compared with USA in 1915

[Paul Barter]

I am forwarding this interesting exchange from the NewMobilityCafe,
since it is on topic for sustran-discuss. Lee points out that the
transport situation in low or middle-income cities today is NOT the same
as the past situations of today's high income cities. I have some
thoughts on this too, which I will share later I hope. BTW Lee is
responding to a question from Simon Norton below.
 
Paul

Paul A. Barter  |  Assistant Professor  |  LKY School of Public Policy
|  National University of Singapore  |  29 Heng Mui Keng Terrace  |
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Email:  paulbarter at nus.edu.sg  |
http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/faculty/paulbarter/  
I am speaking for myself, not for my employers.   
Are you interested in urban transport in developing countries? Then try
http://urbantransportasia.blogspot.com/
And consider joining the SUSTRAN-DISCUSS list,
http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss or
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------------

Message: 5         
   Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2006 17:56:36 -0500
   From: "Lee Schipper" <SCHIPPER at wri.org>
Subject: Re: modal split

Sort of right up my cycleway--
China today has roughly the GDP /capita (in purchasing power) of the US
in 1915, but twice as many passenger automobiles per capita as the US
did, and a much bigger urban tranpsort mess.
India is in a way more "advanced" becuse of so many two wheelers.

The most urgent problem is that there are so many people on foot or
cycle being rundown by the cars and two wheelers in crowded cities.


Think of it this way. Virtually every home in urban china today has a
refrigerator, and roughly 20% have air conditioning. The former was
barely invented in 1915, the latter unknown. 
Shanghai has more cell phones/capita than the Entire EU. SHanghai, to
be fair, has the US per capita income of about 1925=30, but even then I
will be that we had fewer land lines per capita than Shanghai has cell
ph ones per capita.

so what is stopping the onrush of motorization? (See our web site under
China Motorization)!


>>> S.Norton at dpmms.cam.ac.uk 2/9/2006 11:40:45 AM >>>
Joshua Odeleye's posting prompts me to ask the following question. How
does the
transport mix in less developed countries compare with what prevailed
in the
richer countries when they were at the same stage of economic
development ?
Have there been any studies on this ?

 Simon Norton



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