, Columnist
China Doesn't Need 125,000 Miles of Track
For all the patriotism that comes with ambitions to build more high-speed rail, it's a bad idea.
China already has a head start.
Photographer: Giulia Marchi/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The building of China’s high-speed rail network counts as one of the greatest transportation success stories so far this century. That doesn’t mean the country can repeat the trick.
When plans for a nationwide network of trains traveling at up to 350 kilometers per hour (220 miles per hour) were first hatched in 2004, it was thought such projects could only be viable in rich countries. Beijing’s economic planners proved those naysayers wrong. Now, two-thirds of the world’s high-speed rail is in China and passengers take 3.7 billion rides every year, more than half of that number on high-speed trains.