This is Beijing-Beijing English blog

According  to the news from the Beijing Municipal Rail Transport center, Beijing’s rail transit after 2015 is under making. The forward planing for will be more than 28 railways.

Until now, there are 8 railways in Beijing, the total longth are more than 200 KM. And there are 13 railways are under construcing now. The rail network will cover more than 56i KM after 2015. The longterm planing for Beijing railway is also under making. There will be more than 28 railways for Beijing in future. This will provide more efficiency to the Beijing public triffic and can meet the demand the requirements for the citizen.

Beijing Municipal Rail Transport center was put in use on December 26,2008 in order to meet  the rail transport network operation and management required. It is the largest, with the most accesss lines and hightest level of intelligent railway transportation hub.

The subway line 4 which will be put in use this year will also be incorporated to the center. The system connection ports were arranged at the begining of the construction.

Beijing  will invest 11 billion yuan (1.6 billion U.S. dollars) in public transport subsidies this year to ensure continued low prices for commuters.

Yang Xiaochao, director of the municipal finance bureau, said the figure was up 14 percent from last year.

The funds would be primarily used to cut subway and bus fares, he was quoted Tuesday by the Beijing Morning Post as saying.

Yang promised the low pricing policy for mass transit would remain unchanged this year.

Beijing, a city with a population of 17 million, has been trying to boost public transportation to ease traffic pressure and improve air quality.

To that end, the city has adopted measures including improving public transport structure, slashing bus fares by 60 percent since the beginning of 2007 and subway fares by 30 percent since October 2007.

Its public transport system is expected to carry some 28 million commuters daily by 2012.

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At forty minutes past 2 p.m yesterday, tranin L605 to Wulumuqi left Beijing. This is the fist train for the students only. According from the officail, there are 1417 seats, and in order to make sure every student will have a seat, no stand tickets were sold.

Ticket buying from different ways

As some students says, some of them bought the ticket from their home town students, and also some bought the tickets from some other chanel but need to pay some more money.

Temp train condition are better than before

L means temporary, this time all students can have a seat ticket and there are air condition on the train, all the trains had been retooled before.

China expects 2.32 billion travelers during the upcoming 40-day travel peak as people flock home for the traditional Spring Festival holiday, government authorities said Thursday.

That represents an 3.5-percent growth from the same period of last year, according to officials at a teleconference held here Thursday by eight central government departments.

The eight departments included the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Public Security and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

Local officials must step up scrutiny to ensure travel safety and make preparations for emergencies, said Liu Tienan, deputy chief of the NDRC, the country’s top economic planner.

Freezing rains and snow over the past few days have blocked some roads in southern China. Local governments have been urged to step up maintenance efforts to ensure major roads are safe and clear.

Early last year, a worst-in-decades snow and ice onslaught hit southern regions and paralyzed many roads and railways, stranding millions heading for a family re-union during the Chinese Lunar New Year.

The country will see a record 188 million train takers in this year’s Spring Festival travel rush, 8 percent more than the same period last year, Xinhua learnt from the Thursday meeting.

Railway authorities in the cities of Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Hangzhou have added 319 temporary express passengers trains for the holiday rush.

In the busy period, which lasts from January 11 to February 19, the number of air travelers will rise 12 percent year on year to 23.2 million.

Travelers by bus and by water will reach 2.07 billion and 31 million respectively, up 3 percent and 8 percent.

The Spring Festival falls on January 26 this year.

An early Spring Festival rush has hit two of China’s largest cities in the last few days as many migrant workers have changed their plans and are now heading home earlier. Local railway authorities have advised travelers to travel as early as possible to avoid the peak period.

The Beijing West Railway Station logged 130-thousand passengers departing on the first day of 2009. And the predicted peak for the Spring Festival rush has already been reached.

The holidays combined with days off during the weekend mean that Chinese people will have 14 days off work this month. Many people who plan to return home for the Lunar New Year are leaving earlier to take advantage of the break.

The railway authorities in the capital have added ticket offices, lengthened working hours, and arranged additional trains to cope with the passenger surge.

Long queues also appeared in front of the ticket booths in Guangzhou Railway Station, which has set up seven temporary ticket booths. Some passengers say they had to come in person because telephone bookings were sold out.

The Ministry of Railways says train stations across China expect to handle a record 188 million passengers, up 8 percent year on year.

For most young people in Beijing, the trams seems only can be seen on the old movie.  But this kind of  transportation tool were really there in Beijing in the past. As the development of the modern transportation, they disappeared  from  Beijing more than forty years ago.

But now they come back to the view of the people in Beijing again. Two trams for sightseeing appear in Qianmen Street. They started their maiden journey at nine a.m. on January 1st. Nearby residents were the first passengers to ride on them.

Trams were first introduced to Beijing in 1924, running from Qianmen in the city centre to Xizhimen, in the city’s west. In 1966, they were officially abandoned as an outdated means of public transportation.

The two new trams have been designed and produced based on old pictures. From the exterior to the interior decoration, the trams have been strictly replicated. Mainly serving visitors along Qianmen’s pedestrian street, each can accommodate up to eighty passengers.

China’s first batch of CRH (China Railway High-speed) sleeper trains made their debut in Shanghai on Tuesday before their maiden journeys scheduled on December 21.

Xinhua News Agency reported that the new high-speed trains will travel both between Beijing and Shanghai, and between Beijing and Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province, with an average speed of 250 kilometres per hour.

Journeys between Beijing and Shanghai will be reduced to less than ten hours, one and a half hours faster than taking the fastest train at present. Travel between Beijing and Hangzhou will also be cut by two hours to eleven hours.

Railway stations across China expect to handle a record of 188 million passengers heading home for the Lunar New Year holiday. That’s up 8 percent year-on-year, the Ministry of Railways (MOR) said in Beijing on Thursday.

“With 150 more trains in operation, trains can carry 4.48 million travelers every day, up 180,000 compared with the same period of 2008,” MOR spokesman Wang Yongping told Xinhua.

The 40-day travel period around the Spring Festival lasts from Jan 11 to Feb 19.

Wang said railways across the country will face great pressure as the Lunar New Year, which is usually celebrated in February, falls on Jan 26 in 2009.

A Beijing-Shanghai high-speed night train is expected to debut next month, reducing travel time by more than 2 hours, a local newspaper reported today.

The Youth Daily report said railway authorities haven’t decided ticket prices or departure times yet for the approximate 9h15m trip. However, tickets are likely to be more than 500 yuan (US$73) considering the price of existing trains.

The highest current price for sleeper tickets between the two cities is 499 yuan.

One train will likely depart about 9:45 pm in each city and arrive at their destinations at about 7am the next day, according to the report. The shortest travel time for other trains between the two cities is 11.5 hours.

The trains are likely to be attractive to business passengers as they are comfortable and cheaper than flights, the report said.

(Shanghai Daily November 24, 2008)

According to the report, Beijing will build more subways in the future to ease the traffic congestion. And two new subway line No.7 and subway No.24 will strart in this year.

The municipal urban planning commission said on its website that it approved the two new lines on Wednesday. Construction is expected to start before the end of this year although no completion date has been announced.

Line No. 7, will run about 24 kilometers from Beijing West Railway Station to the eastern suburbs. It will connect the city’s most congested traffic area, Tiananmen Square, with key business in the east. In all, there will be 23 stops.

The other new subway route, Line No. 14, will extend nearly 46 kilometers to become the longest urban rail route in the Chinese capital. It will connect the southwestern suburbs, the city’s center and the northeast with a total of 36 stops.

Sources with Beijing Urban Engineering Design and Research Institute, the prime contractor of the subway lines, said they will begin surveying, mapping and designing the lines before unveiling an exact site map to the public.

No figures have been released as to how much the new subway lines will cost.

Beijing’s urban railway system is expected to total 561 kilometers by 2015. Currently, it extends 200 kilometers.

The city opened three new lines in July, ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games, bringing the total number of subway lines to eight.

We all hope the new subway will become true and the traffic can be eased.