Cars are the new got-to-have in China. And Shanghai, the world’s most modern big city, already has a traffic problem. How it copes with the problem may have some lessons for the United States, whose big cities have far worse rush-hour traffic jams.

Members of China’s burgeoning middle class make up the world’s fastest growing major vehicle market, reports The New York Times in an article about Ford Motor Co.’s new automobile and parts factories there to supply the Chinese market.

In Shanghai, with its 20 million people, 2 million cars, mostly small private sedans, crowd the streets morning and evening, jockeying for space with 7 million bicycles and motorbikes. But authorities have taken steps to keep the traffic moving. Broad new elevated freeways snake between the new skyscraper office and apartment towers, easing the strain on ground-level streets.

Hardly any big SUVs are to be seen. A resident explains that Chinese don’t need big cars because a Chinese couple may have only one child (unless both spouses came from one-child families, in which case they may have a second child).

Uniformed traffic assistants stand by at busy intersections to try to keep motorists and pedestrians from violating the traffic signals. Efficient modern bus and subway systems, as well as a fleet of 45,000 taxicabs, mostly small Volkswagens, also relieve the strain. On special occasions, motorists are ordered to leave their cars at home to permit easy movement of official limousines.

Most important, not a single truck can be seen all day on Shanghai’s streets and freeways – none of the heavy loads of building materials to supply the constant construction jobs all over the city and none of the delivery trucks to carry goods to the big department stores and thousands of smaller shops. By law, the trucks may operate in the city only late at night. By 4 a.m., they must be clear of the streets.

Still, it is up to pedestrians to watch their step. Bicycles and motorbikes are free to race along the sidewalks, even on the fashionable shopping street, Nanjing Road. And on the streets, the cars have the right-of-way, dodging in and out of traffic and assuming that the foot traffic will keep out of the way.

So far, Shanghai’s traffic controllers are keeping up with the constant growth. Greater congestion obviously lies ahead, but this state-of the-art eighth-largest city in the world seems fully capable of dealing with it.