Abstract:
Abstract: China, and other developing nations, stand at a transportation
planning crossroads--whether to follow the American highway/privatized motorization
model or to optimize their existing mass transit/nonmotorized transportation model. This
Comment charts the history of transportation development in China and indicates its
destination in light of China's recent embrace of the car industry as a "pillar" of the
nation's economy. It then considers motor vehicles' adverse effects, and assesses the
value of mass and nonmotorized transportation as viable alternatives. In order to stall or
reverse a process not supported wholeheartedly by the Chinese citizenry, this Comment
determines whether China's internal city planning regime, environmental laws, and court
system allow citizens to participate in and to challenge monumental decisions such as
those affecting transportation development and the environment. Concluding that
bottom-up strategies are currently ineffective, this Comment then considers top-down
pressure through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
("UN/FCCC"). If not dissuaded, developing countries will undergo a chain reaction of
mass motorization, building up a greenhouse gas emission debt many times over what
may be reduced by the First World. Of the existing top-down strategies, the COP-3,
slated for December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, seems promising.
