The guidance on urban transportation development from governments and society is extremely important. This paper attempts to demonstrate the differences between various travel modes from the exclusive prospective of subsidies. After reckoning subsidies for public transport and cars in the aspects of operation process and infrastructure construction, it gets the following result: the current fact that much more subsidies are given to cars instead of public transport would affect residents' choices of travel modes. Three suggestions are given at last. Firstly, the subsidies for cars should be decreased and even eliminated. Secondly, marketoriented parking charge method should be implemented. Thirdly, decision makers should facilitate the formulation of public transport oriented urban transportation development mode by both positive and negative efforts (i.e., subsidies and taxes).