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Suburbs to centre in 20 mins, transport pledge
By Hu Cong (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-04-22 06:30
SHANGHAI: A new urban rail network will be able to ferry people from the
suburbs to downtown Shanghai in as little as 20 minutes, something visitors to
the 2010 World Expo will no doubt be grateful for.
The 20-minute claim was made yesterday by Professor Chen Xiaohong, an expert
in charge of the expo's transport planning and professor of the College of
Transport Planning and Management at Shanghai's Tongji University.
In addition to a crisscross net of subways and light rails that is already
under construction, Shanghai will build five large permanent stations in the
suburbs in an attempt to shift car drivers onto the mass transport system.
Speaking to China Daily, Professor Chen said: "The World Expo will not put
much extra pressure on the central urban transport system, which already serves
more than 17 million citizens every day.
"The real challenge is how to smoothly accommodate the influx of visitors
from outside Shanghai."
Organizers predict the expo could attract as many as 72.2 million people
during its six-month run in 2010, with as many as 800,000 visiting on any single
day. Some 35 per cent of visitors will travel from neighbouring provinces in the
Yangtze Delta.
Experts have proposed building five inter-city express railway lines linking
Shanghai with Nanjing, Hangzhou and other main cities in the neighouring
provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang within 15 years. Current lines in the region,
already carrying six times more passengers than the country's average, are
operating at maximum capacity.
The new rail line between Shanghai and Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu, is
undergoing feasibility studies as a first step of the grand plan, Ministry of
Railways officials said at a forum in Shanghai on Tuesday.
Shanghai now has two subway lines and a lightrail which running 80 kilometres
across the town. It also has a 35-kilometre magnetic-levitation railway leading
to the Pudong International Airport, the only maglev line in commercial
operation in the world.
Last year Shanghai local government mapped out an ambitious long-term plan
that aims to build one of the world's most sophisticated urban rail transport
networks. Under the plan, Shanghai will have 17 urban rail lines running through
810 kilometres by 2020, limiting travel between any two rail-covered points in
the mega city to within 45 minutes.
By 2010, there will be five new train lines extending the city's rail
transport system to 400 kilometres. All these new lines are to run through the
World Expo site along Shanghai's Huangpu River, said Chen.
(China Daily 04/22/2005 page3)
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