Urban rail investment: lessons from Beijing

Posted by Wenjie Wu, LSE While British politicians argue about infrastructure, Chinese policymakers have been laying it out. Decades of heavy investment in urban transport systems have reshaped the face of most Chinese cities. Between 2000 and 2008 alone, for example, the Beijing city government invested about 52 billion CNY (c. £5.2bn) on new rail transit construction, with a subsequent investment of 105 billion CNY (c. £10bn) in the four years to 2012.