Buses help revive rural business and boost revenue from tourism
Print Edition
Xiao Feng used to ride a bike from her town to visit friends in nearby villages.
鈥淚t was a long trip under the hot sun or in the rain, and the road was not safe,鈥 said Xiao, a resident of Renhe Township of Huangchuan County, in central Henan Province. 鈥淏ut now, with public buses, the trip has become safer and more convenient.鈥
For local residents like Xiao taking public buses costs just 1 yuan (16 US cents) per trip.
The improvements to transport infrastructure are the result of a new local government program aimed at connecting all villages using public buses.
According to an eight-year service purchasing contract signed between the county government and the bus company, the government provides a subsidy of 4.98 million yuan annually for the company to run services for the county鈥檚 500,000 rural residents.
鈥淚t means the government spends around 10 yuan per rural resident annually, while all rural residents can enjoy high-quality public transport at the cost of 1 yuan each trip,鈥 said Shen Wei, deputy head of the county.
However, buses need good road conditions to operate, and the roads in many villages were inadequate. In Liangang Village, for example, there was only one 3.5-meter-wide road in the whole village 10 years ago.
Since 2014, the county has allocated around 400 million yuan to build and extend roads in its rural areas. In 2017, the only road in Liangang was widened to 7 meters and 80 percent of the village roads in the county are now at least 4.5 meters wide.
While enhancing traffic safety, the improvement of transport infrastructure has improved the flow of rural labor.
Ye Xianqin, a resident of Liuwa Village, now travels by bus to her job in a supermarket at Shuangliushu Township. 鈥淚 feel like a city resident now,鈥 she said.
Better road conditions also revived failing rural businesses.
鈥淚 opened a poultry farm 20 years ago, but the bad road conditions at that time made it difficult to receive fodder deliveries and transport eggs to the markets because eggs were often broken due to the bumpy road,鈥 said Xiong Yongming of Yangang Village. Xiong decided to close the farm and become a migrant worker.
He reopened his poultry business in 2016 and the annual revenue now exceeds 100,000 yuan.
Improved infrastructure has also increased rural tourism. Liu Feng, from Liangang Village, said his speedboat business generates revenue of up to 3,000 yuan on weekends as more tourists travel to the countryside.
Over the past five years, a total of 1.27 million kilometers of roads were built in the countryside, bringing the total length of rural roads to 4 million kilometers, government figures showed.
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