Research on the Development Mechanism of China´s Highway

China´s highway experienced a rapid growth due to the national economic development in recent years. Synchronously, other transportation modes´ paths of development were somewhat different. With the transport evolution models being presented, this paper briefly reviews the development history of several main transport infrastructures in both China and USA and elicits a general rule of transport development. But the major contribution of this paper is the subsequent study of the connection between highway development, economic growth and other major transport modes. Based on the detailed research on China´s data of transportation and economic development from the time that China began to reform and open up to outside world to the very end of 2005, the authors use linear regression and polynomial regression method to educe the relationship between highway and railway development, and find a way that how national GDP influences highway development. However, environmental and institutional factors should also be considered when highway development mechanism is studied. At last some suggestions for improving the adaptability between highway transportation and social economic development are provided