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Beijing Subway plans hit rush hour

By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-16 07:49

Beijing Subway plans hit rush hour

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]

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.

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.

Beijing Subway plans hit rush hour

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.

A substantial underground network would be a boon for any major city and, recognizing this, the municipal government in Beijing recently added another four lines to its long-term subway plan, which will bring the total number on completion to 22.

By 2015, the city aims to be running 18 lines stretching 561 km, while the number of passengers will hit 10 million a day, the authority said.

The rush to finish lines 4, 8 and 9 by next year, meanwhile, has heightened fears of on-site accidents among citizens and experts, including Zhang, who said: "When too many projects are carried out at the same time, it will naturally increase the risk of accidents."

A string of incidents have hit subway construction in China over the past two years, the latest and worst being in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, last November when at least 17 workers were killed when 75 m of tunnel collapsed at the planned Xianghu Station, in the southern suburbs of the picturesque city.

In Beijing, the most recent incident was in 2007, when a section of Line 10 in the Haidian district collapsed during construction. Six people died.

Complicated geographical conditions also hamper underground construction, said Zhang, but he insisted the biggest challenge was the fact China was undertaking large-scale subway developments without sufficient numbers of experienced professionals.

"China lacks the professionals for subway projects, as only a couple of cities have built them in the past," he added.

A boom in subway construction in the last few years has seen 14 cities in China start work on 46 urban rail lines, totaling 1,212 km, said Dou Hao, deputy general manager of China International Engineering Consulting Corporation.

Five more cities have also had plans for mass urban rail transit systems approved by the National Development and Reform Commission, he said.

It is estimated about 2,100 km of track will have been laid across 19 cities by 2015, costing at least 800 billion yuan ($117 billion).

It puts designers, engineers and construction workers at a premium, which is reflected in their salaries. "An adept subway construction worker is difficult to find, so they are paid 150 yuan a day, three times that of a worker who does not have the right skills," said Zhang.

As CES secretary-general, he has been on investigation teams following several accidents and said most could have been avoided if the on-site manager had been more experienced in building subways.

However, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said it sends inspectors for regular checks on urban rail projects, and has drafted national standards on managing the risks involved in subway projects.

Liu Xiaochen, deputy director of the standing committee of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress, has also urged safety supervision departments to stay alert to prevent potential accidents.

Keeping passengers safe on existing lines is also a priority for the Beijing government. "The subway is so crowded at peak times many passengers need to be pushed by subway station employees to get in the carriage," said Gao Yang, a deputy of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress.

Transfer stations are regarded the most congested by travelers, who say stairways and platforms can be at bursting point in rush hours, when trains unload approximately every two minutes.

Liu Xiaochen added lines 1 and 2, which have the most transfer stations, are under "unbearable stress" and have become a "latent danger".

Built in the 1960s and 70s, the lines were intended as evacuation routes in the event of a war. But according to a report by a subway safety supervision team under the State Council in 2003, neither has the sufficient safety systems required for an underground public transport network.

Despite efforts during the last three decades to update its ageing infrastructure and rolling stock, Beijing News reported that 114 old trains still run on Line 1. However, they all cleared checks for the standard of emergency equipment following the horrific public bus fire that killed 27 passengers in Chengdu, Sichuan province, on June 5.

The lines also suffer occasional breakdowns, the latest being last Wednesday when 100 morning commuters were stranded for more than an hour when Line 2 was suspended due to a track fault.

The subway operators have adopted strict measures to prevent problems, including cameras on carriages and platforms, as well as bag-scanning equipment and metal detectors in every station.

"Our security checkup measures have discovered nearly 57,000 forbidden items in the past year that passengers had been planning to carry onto the subway," said Jia Peng, a spokesman for Beijing Subway. "They include 17 guns, 122 bullets, three bombs and 21,461 knives, as well as at least 18,000 flammable items and 126 toxic items.

"We have drafted emergency action plans and we carry out drills every year, just in case."

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