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I. Major Problems in the Public Transport System in Large Cities in China 1. Road Capacity is in serious shortage. For a long time, road capacity in Chinese cities had been low, the per-capita road area in large cities is less than one-third of that of the developed countries. Only in the past 10 years or so, road construction began to speed up, the per-capita area rose to 6.6 square meters from 2.8 square meters, maintaining an annual growth of about 10%. Although the growth speed was fast, it still lagged far behind the 20% growth rate of urban traffic capacity. 2. Number of vehicles in cities grows too fast. In recent years, vehicles in Chinese cities grew at an annual rate of more than 15''7o, and the annual growth rate of private automobiles was as high as 28%. The state policy on developing private automobiles has been implemented. The outline of the l0th Five-Year Plan makes it clear that economical cars of high efficiency, energy saving and low emission are to be developed, and families are encouraged to buy their own cars. The increase in cars will help speed up the process of urbanization, improve the city structure and regional transport structure and promote the development of related industries. As the lessons of developed countries indicate, the fast growth of automobiles would give rise to such problems as environmental pollution, slower driving speed, increase in the number of traffic accidents, the lower level of public transport service (lower driving speed and low punctuality), and difficulties for pedestrians and means of transport other than automobiles. 3. Public transport is weakening. Since the mid-1980s, the public bus transport (including trolley bus) in big cities has been shrinking in terms of operation efficiency, operation management, service level and economic benefits. In the 14 years from 1985 to 1999, the length of public transport routes in the country increased 4.6 times, the number of public buses increased 2.4 times, reaching the ratio of 0.94 vehicle/1,000 people. The driving speed of public buses, however, dropped from 12-14 kilometers/hour to 5-10 kilometers/hour, the newly increased transport capacity was offset by the drop in transport efficiency. In the early 1990s, of all means of transport for urban residents, the use of public bus dropped from 30% to about 10% in most cities. The shrink of public bus transport accelerated the expansion of bikes and private cars, this, in return, resulted a wider area of traffic congestion in cities and brought the public bus transport into a vicious cycle of development. II. The Sustainable Development and Public Bus Priority strategy for China''s Urban Public Transport 1. Resources and environment restrictions on urban transport Along with the urbanization and the wider use of vehicles, urban transport system will occupy more land, consume large amount of energy and yield a negative impact on the environment and ecological system. On the other hand, China''s current resources (incl