City to add 21 rail, subway lines
- Source: Global Times
- [08:29 May 31 2010]
- Comments
Beijing subway in 2015. Photo: Courtesy of Beijing Subway Company
By Li Yang
The city plans to build 850 more kilometers of subway and light railway lines by 2020, the CPC Beijing Municipal Standing Committee announced last Wednesday.
Beijing already has 200 kilometers and nine lines but by 2020, the city aims to have 30 lines and 450 stations, according to an unfinished Beijing Urban Track Transportation Plan (2011-2020), the Legal Mirror reported Thursday.
The city will boast a total of 561 kilometers and 18 subway and light railway lines by 2015, Guo Chunan, a deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Institute of City Planning and Design, said in an interview with the Beijing municipal authority's official website Beijing.gov. cn in September 2007.
"I haven't heard about the '1,050 kilometers by 2020' plan yet, only the '561 kilometers by 2015' one," said Guo Jifu, chief of the Beijing Transportation Center at Beijing Jiaotong University.
"Even if Beijing has 1,050 kilometers of subway lines in 2020, there's still a big gap compared to Paris and Tokyo," Guo said.
Both of these foreign capital cities have more than 2,000 kilometers of urban railway and subway lines extending in all directions to suburban areas, he explained.
"Beijing still has a way to go in suburban light railway planning if it aspires to being a global metropolis," Guo said.
Public transport plans attracted the most interest of Beijing residents in an idea-collecting campaign launched by the municipal authority for its 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), the Beijing Evening News reported Thursday.
Residents will spend a maximum of 15 minutes walking to the nearest subway station from any place within the Fourth Ring Road by 2020, the standing committee announced.
Aside from urban transport, the city plans on building a three-tier system of suburban, inter-city and high-speed railway, the committee also announced.
