Similar environmental challenges for passenger transport have
also become evident in Chinese cities. The paper by Zhao (this issue)
captures the rapid increase in private motorized mobility and its
social causes, as the demographics in China changed and the e-society
emerged. In addition,Zhou et al. (this issue) rightly argue that the
changing urban form represents another important aspect of changing
mobility in Chinese cities at different scales, especially in view of
the legacy of danwei2and the importance of domestic migrants in the
working population of China. As private cars have become more
popular, concerns over automobile dependency have been raised.
Measures to counter the automobile dependency in large Chinese cities
need to be explored and critically analyzed. They include parking
controls and promoting urban rail. However, these policies, as elaborated
in the papers by Wang and Liu (this issue) and by Qin et al. (this
issue), are not the panacea. Local circumstances need to be taken into account, and details in the regulatory environment and organizational
models3 can affect the success of these measures in reducing car use.