2012-01-07

Chinese build subway stop in farmland

City Subway Construction Decelerates in China
For example, rail lines were built where few people live on the outskirts of the Hunan Province city of Changsha, said Wang Chengli, an urban transit professor at the city's Central South University. Today, exit gates for some of the city's finished subway stations lead to farm fields.
Wang said Changsha authorities installed far fewer kilometers of track in the city's center than in its suburbs. Each project was approved by the central government, he added.
The article discusses the slowdown in subway construction, which will lead to falling demand for labor and raw materials. Declining real estate is cutting off financing for these projects, even if they wanted to continue building subway lines into the farms.
How does each subway system turn a profit? Not necessarily through passenger ticket sales. Key sources of subway system cash in Beijing, said the Line 4 financing official, are government subsidies and real estate.
In the Chinese version of the article this is explained more clearly. The Beijing subway corporation bought a real estate company and that division delivers profits for the company, a phenomena seen all over China during the real estate bubble as companies from every industry jumped into real estate. 2012 will be the reckoning.

No comments:

Post a Comment