Beijing opened five new suburban subway and light rail lines Thursday as it moves to tackle the city's chronic traffic congestion problem through the development of its rapid mass transit network.
The five new lines -- Fangshan Line, Changping Line, the first phase of the No. 15 Line, Yizhuang Line and Daxing Line -- have a combined length of 108 kilometers, bringing the total length of metro in the Chinese capital to 336 kilometers.
The new lines bring the total number of metro lines in the city to 14.
The new lines cost nearly 61 billion yuan (about 9.2 billion U.S. dollars) to build.
Beijing's metro network now hauls 5.02 million passengers per day.
"The opening of the five new lines strengthens links between Beijing's downtown area and the suburban districts of Changping, Shunyi, Fangshan, Daxing and Yizhuang. The new lines will help citizens travel around the city with convenience," said Li Xiaosong, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications.
TRAFFIC WOES
Massive traffic jams have long been a headache for Beijing, a city of 20 million people and 4.8 million vehicles. This year, an average 2,000 new cars hit the city's streets every day.
A week ago, authorities in Beijing announced they will slash new car registrations to ease traffic gridlock. Next year, the city will allow only 240,000 vehicles to be registered, about two-thirds less than this year.
Moreover, Beijing municipal government agencies and public institutions were ordered not to increase the size of their motor vehicle fleets over the next five years.
Other measures include higher parking fees in the city's central areas, stricter traffic rules for cars registered outside Beijing.
One other measure is an odd-even license plate number system that allows cars to be driven every other day in rush hour in some congested areas.
Officials have acknowledged the restrictions will not automatically solve the city's traffic woes.
"China is urbanizing quickly. Road construction cannot ease traffic congestion," Li said.
"Developing public transport, especially rapid rail transit, is an important move for Beijing and other cities, to ease traffic congestion and improve urban functionality," she said.
Beijing is building more subway lines. The number of lines in the city will reach 19 by 2015. Then, their combined length will total 561 kilometers. By 2020, the total subway length will increase to 1,000 kilometers, she said.
URBAN EXPANSION
The five newly-opened metro lines are expected not only to ease traffic congestion in downtown Beijing but also to boost economic and social development of the once rural, backward suburban areas.
Lured by the travel conveniences brought by the new lines, many young white-collars, who could not afford an apartment in inner city due to skyrocketing prices, have turned to those suburban districts to settle.
Along with the construction of new metro lines, municipal authorities have stepped up the building of new shopping malls, hospitals and schools in those suburban districts, hoping to turn them into satellite cities.
"It is getting more and more convenient to live in the suburban districts," said citizen Chen Bangbao in Daxing.
In addition, Beijing officials have said authorities are considering extending the city's metro lines to some towns in neighboring Hebei Province.
Nationwide, the country's metro construction is in full swing as about 30 cities have been building or designing a total of more than 110 metro lines this year, including Shanghai, Hangzhou, Xi'an and Chongqing.
Meanwhile, city-to-city metro lines, such as the Shanghai-to-Kunshan and Guangzhou-to-Foshan connections, have created a new kind of urban dynamism.
"That is a new breakthrough in China's metro construction for different cities to be connected by metro lines," said Prof. Sun Zhang, from the Institute of Railway and Urban Rail Transit at the Shanghai-based Tongji University.
"That is also an attempt to break the barriers caused by administrative divisions," he said.
