Mind the missing links in China's urbanizing landscape: The phenomenon of broken intercity trunk roads and its underpinnings

The success of intercity transport planning is not guaranteed, with broken intercity trunk roads (BITRs) as a major case in point. This paper reports a first exploratory analysis of BITRs in China. Our analysis identifies geographical patterns of broken intercity highways and conjectures the relationship between BITRs and their socioeconomic, political, and geographical underpinnings. More specifically, by comparing national highway plans in 2013 and completed highways in 2015, we identified 76 city dyads that are associated with BITRs. A subsequent logistic regression analysis suggests that fragmented landscape, large gaps in total GDP, and provincial boundaries will increase the likelihood of BITRs between city dyads. Our empirical framework can be extended to assess other inter-jurisdictional infrastructure projects such as power grids, railways, and pipelines, where planned but unfinished links are common. The paper concludes with city-regional and transport planning policy implications.