Chapter 836 Traffic Conditions
Today, the United States has more than 200,000 kilometers of railways, which means that East Africa will have to build at least 200,000 kilometers of railways in the future to meet national demand. However, the United States' railways cannot stop growing. During its peak period in the future, they will have to reach at least 400,000 kilometers. Ernst still has to think carefully about such an exaggerated number.
The mainland of East Africa is nearly twice as large as the mainland of the United States (there is no Alaska in the United States at the same time and space), so it is reasonable for the railways to double. However, based on the development path of European and American railways in previous lives, Ernst still needs to pay attention.
Of course, the United States' exaggerated development of railways is closely related to the current era. First of all, Americans could not imagine that the scale of automobile development in the future would be so exaggerated that it would almost become a necessary means of transportation for every American family.
Secondly, the Panama Canal has not yet been completed, so the main mode of transportation on the east and west coasts of the United States must rely on railways. If you go by sea, you have to go around the entire South America. This is just like the Asia-Europe trade before the opening of the Suez Canal, which had to go around the African coast.
Speaking of the Suez Canal, Ernst has complicated feelings. If there was no Suez Canal, East Africa's economy would definitely be able to reach a higher level. However, without the Suez Canal, East Africa's expansion in southern Africa in the first 20 years would definitely not be so smooth.
The opening of the Suez Canal reduced the great powers' attention to Africa. Secondly, the main route for European immigrants in East Africa and import and export trade were also more convenient through the Suez Canal.
Now that East Africa has been established after the South African War, the great powers cannot change the situation in southern Africa, so there is no Suez Canal...
To dispel these complicated thoughts, Ernst said to Andre: "Railways are an important means of transportation related to national defense, economy, and people's livelihood. They cannot be completely profit-oriented. For example, some railways may make losses when they are opened, but the economic pull on the local area is also unimaginable. In general, the construction of East African railways must be considered from many aspects, even environmental issues, such as the impact on the ecology. Of course, we cannot stop eating because of choking. Now railway construction is still mainly focused on developing national defense, economy, and people's livelihood."
Ernst still put national defense first. In fact, the construction of the East African Railway originally put national defense security first.
At that time, the primary purpose of the construction of the Central Railway was to control the southern African region. At that time, central and southern East Africa were surrounded by hostile forces on three sides. The Central Railway was like an arm extended from the east to firmly control the central and southern territories under the rule of East Africa. As for the incidental economic development of the central region, it was only a matter of time.
Changing the subject, Ernst said to Liu Yideville: "The Ministry of Transport should also actively cooperate with the railway department, especially in highway construction. Railways cannot reach every place. Railways are arteries, and so are highways. In fact, the role of highways is even more important. They also act as capillaries, connecting cities, villages, railway hubs, etc. together."
East Africa is now vigorously promoting the upgrading of roads, especially in some important urban areas, where asphalt roads have been paved.
At the end of the 18th century, during the Industrial Revolution, an Englishman named John Macartan designed a new way to build roads. He used gravel to pave the road, with the middle of the road raised to facilitate drainage and a flat and wide road surface. Later, this type of road was named "Macartan Road" after the designer's surname, which is also the origin of "Malu".
As for asphalt roads, their development time is relatively short. Around the 1850s, France first used rock asphalt for road pavements. In 1854, a thin layer of asphalt pavement close to the current one was built in Paris, which can be called the beginning of hot-laid asphalt pavement.
There are very few asphalt roads in East Africa, and only some cities in the eastern coastal areas have asphalt roads. After all, the distribution of natural asphalt in the world is extremely uneven, and East Africa has poor natural endowments in this regard. Of course, as a big country, it is certainly not completely without asphalt. As far as Ernst himself knows, Congo has a lot of asphalt sand resources, which is the location of Congo's seaport, and basically overlaps with the distribution of oil and gas resources in East Africa.
However, this is all the work of the mining department. Ernst only knows the approximate area, and development is a matter for the future. Moreover, with the current industrial level, the world still mainly relies on natural asphalt, so East Africa also needs to import from Europe.
Moreover, the price of something like asphalt will not be that high. Even if it provides better experience than cement roads, cement roads also have their advantages. If there are affordable substitutes for anything, the price will not increase too much.
Liu Yideweier said: "As of last year, we have completed 20,000 kilometers of road hardening projects in Hesse alone, which has greatly improved the traffic conditions in Hesse. Although the progress in other areas is relatively slow, it is still a great improvement compared with the past."
Hesse was the first province to promote road hardening because the local road conditions are at the lower level in East Africa. In this regard, East Africa focuses on optimizing road conditions in rainy areas, such as Hesse and the provinces in the Great Lakes region.
This is easy to understand. The economic conditions of the two places are not all bad in East Africa and can be ranked at the upper-middle level. In addition, the demand is relatively strong, so the progress is fast.
The roads in other areas of central and eastern China can be maintained for a period of time because they are located in grasslands or plateaus and were built earlier.
"As of last year, the total mileage of hardened roads in the country has exceeded 200,000 kilometers, which is one of the fastest progress in the world," he said.
Ernst nodded and said, "The more roads the better. The current road conditions in East Africa are far from adequate. There is a huge gap between us and Europe and the United States, so we are also accelerating road construction."
"And with the development of the automobile industry in the future, the demand for roads will increase, and even replace some of the functions of railways. This is one of the important indicators of my country's industrial innovation and regional development."
Ultimately, it is to promote the development of the East African automobile industry. As a "big country" in the world's leading automobile industry, the driving experience on most roads in East Africa is not good.
Of course, cars are not fixed on rails like trains. They can basically travel on any flat ground, but they will be more bumpy.
For example, for military vehicles, off-road performance is a very important indicator. At this time, the vast grasslands of East Africa are all "roads", but they are somewhat useless.
In addition to railways and roads, water transportation is also an important component of transportation in East Africa. However, the water transportation conditions in East Africa are relatively poor, so there is nothing much to say. At present, the construction is still mainly based on land transportation.
Of course, the water transportation conditions are poor nationwide, but this is not the case in the region, especially in East Africa, where there are many large lakes. Six of the top fifty largest lakes in the world are located in East Africa, and three of them are in the top ten in the world. The Great Lake (Lake Victoria) ranks third in the world, second only to the Caspian Sea and Lake Superior.
Moreover, the three major lakes in East Africa are concentrated in the eastern region, which makes East Africa's lake transportation industry relatively developed and growing very rapidly.
These lakes are also important sources of fishery resources in East Africa, which means that even in the interior of East Africa, freshwater fishery resources are no worse than those in coastal areas.
The only drawback is that these lakes are relatively independent and not interconnected like the Great Lakes, but this is also conducive to the dispersion of water resources.
In addition, the plateau lakes also impose certain restrictions on the territory of East Africa. For example, the existence of Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika makes Mbeya in the middle the only channel.
The same will be true in the future. Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika are both hundreds of meters deep and large in area, so the conditions for building bridges are not met. In the future, transportation between the east and west banks will definitely be dominated by ferries.
(End of this chapter)
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