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Beijing Subway plans hit rush hour

By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-16 08:25

With the city of Beijing under mounting pressure to expand its subway system to ease traffic congestion and air pollution, close attention is being paid to the safety of its ambitious underground projects as many fear they could be rushed to meet tight deadlines.

The capital currently operates eight subway lines stretching 200 km and handles around 4 million passengers a day, making it second only to Shanghai among the mainland's largest subway networks.

The Airport Express train travels towards central Beijing after leaving Terminal 3 of the Beijing Capital International Airport. The Beijing Subway service also has a station at Terminal 2 and is linked to lines 2, 10 and 13. [Zhuo Ensen/China Daily]

But by next year, Beijing aims to have another 100 km of track up and running, and Vice-Mayor Chen Gang urged engineering and building teams last October to find "whatever way possible" to make sure the work finishes on schedule.

If accomplished, it will be an amazing feat, especially compared to construction projects undertaken in similar metropolises such as Singapore or Moscow, where subway networks are usually extended at a rate of only 10 km a year.

Laying 100 km is a challenge no regular construction methods can achieve, said Chen in October, "so, we need to bend the rules and speed up the plans. It is the only way".

Line 4, which will link the northwest with the south of the city, is expected to open this year, while the new Line 9, stretching from Baishiqiao to Beijing West Railway Station, and the second phase of Line 8, are slated for 2010.

All three run vertically through the city and, along with the existing Line 5, are expected to help ease traffic flow on the roads and underground for those traveling north to south, or vice versa.

Although the planned speed of construction has caused concern for some, Shi Zhongheng, an underground specialist at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, backed the project.

"The unusually fast development of Beijing subway we see now is because it has developed way too slowly in the past. Also the worsening traffic congestion demands a speedy solution," he said.

Between 1965, when construction of the Beijing subway began, and 2001, workers laid only 42 km of track. But it was only after completion of the north-south Line 5 - Taipingzhuangbei to Songjiazhuang - in 2007 did a comprehensive network start to take shape, with overall passenger numbers rising by 30 percent in the first week of it coming into operation.

"Before then, Line 1, which runs east to west; Line 2, a loop around the city center, and Line 13, a semi-loop into the northern suburbs, had failed to form a user-friendly network," said Shi. "Line 5 helped connect them into a network effect."

Congestion on the city's streets hit an all-time high in recent years and, as of February this year, there were 3.56 million vehicles on its roads. The increase has far surpassed estimations based on a study by a local research institute in 2004, which suggested Beijing would have only 1.73 million cars by 2008 and 2.21 by 2010.

Traffic jams occur just as often during non-peak times as rush hours, while extreme weather can bring the city to a standstill, said Zhang Yan, secretary-general of China Civil Engineering Society (CES). He recalled Aug 1, 2007, when heavy rain paralyzed the capital, including the second and third ring roads. Cars were stuck in water 50 cm deep, while the emergency services hotline was overloaded with calls about traffic accidents.

The municipal government has tried to ease the problems by building more ring roads and express links, and then widening them when they also became congested. It also implemented a rule last year to ban cars with certain number plates from the roads on certain days of the week, which is aimed at forcing 700,000 drivers off the roads and onto public transport each day.

But as Rong Jian, a professor at the Beijing University of Technology, explains: "The car ban will not be a long-term cure because its effect will be offset by the growing vehicle ownership among the city's citizens."

More than 1,000 new vehicles hit the roads in Beijing every day, according to the local traffic management bureau. Zhang of the CES said: The problem in Beijing is officials have tried to solve the traffic problems by constantly updating the road plan, but what it really needs is a transport plan that incorporates various mass transit systems.

"A subway is an effective way to solve traffic problems in a metropolis. It has evident advantages, such as speed, capacity and immunity from bad weather."

Underground networks have helped ease road congestion in cities across the world, including Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea. It is half the size of Beijing and has double the number of cars, according to local statistics, but it does not suffer many traffic jams because 60 percent of citizens prefer to travel on the subway instead of driving.

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