Urban Rail Transit and Economic Growth —An Empirical Analysis Based on China’s Cities Panel Data

China's urban rail transit has entered a stage of rapid development, and urban rail transit investment has also grown rapidly. This paper builds a model of urban rail transit on economic growth based on the consideration of the impact of various factors on the economic growth, using data of prefecture-level panel cities in China during 2003-2013. The empirical results of this paper indicate that the elasticity of urban rail transit on urban economic growth is 0.025, indicating that it plays an important role in the economic growth of China's cities and China's urban rail transit is a major city economic. The promotion effect of growth is very significant but has no significant effect on the economic growth of small cities. Buses, taxis, and road infrastructure also have a significant influence on promoting urban economic growth, but they are all embodied in small cities. Therefore, cities need to choose suitable transportation modes according to their own economic development. Major cities should continue to develop rail transit, promote the PPP model in the development process, and increase the ratio of light rail to suburban railways.