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High-speed rail brings Delta closer together
By Zha Minjie |
June 21, 2010, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THOMAS Lu, a young advertising agency employee who works in Shanghai, has never thought his home in Nanjing would be that close.
"It sounds a nice idea to me that I can get off work in the city and have dinner with my parents back home," said Lu who, like many non-locals working here, lives in a small rented apartment on his own.
He's talking about the Shanghai-Nanjing high-speed rail line which will start operating on July 1 after two years of construction.
The bullet train, which has a top speed of 350 kilometers per hour, will connect Shanghai to Nanjing, capital of neighboring Jiangsu Province 300 kilometers away, in a little less than an hour.
The Shanghai-Nanjing train is just one of five high-speed lines recently opened or set to open in the Yangtze River Delta, one of the country's most developed economic zones.
The Shanghai Railway Bureau, which is also responsible for rail services in Zhejiang, Jiangsu and part of Anhui, plans to invest more than 100 billion yuan (US$14.65 billion) this year in rail infrastructure mainly for high-speed trains.
The region's new rail system will have 6,849 kilometers of track by 2020, according to a 2005 plan for the Yangtze River Delta rail network, and allow passengers to travel between key Delta cities such as Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Ningbo within three hours.
The Shanghai-Nanjing line is expected to cut travel time between the two cities from more than two hours currently to under an hour. And there will be about 200 daily services, double the current capacity, including one train every five minutes during peak hours.
The Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway, which will start in October, will cut the journey from more than an hour currently to 38 minutes.
Both the new lines will operate from Shanghai's Hongqiao Railway Station.
But railway authorities have still not announced ticket prices for the high-speed journey, raising concerns.
Tickets will certainly be more expensive than on the current Shanghai-Nanjing line which cost from 93 to 112 yuan. "Hopefully it won't cost me too much," Lu said.
However, some passengers, especially migrant workers who make a hard living in the city, are worried that regular trains will be canceled and they will be compelled to use the more expensive high-speed trains.
Rail officials denied this, saying they would increase rail services instead of canceling some as the current services are far from adequate.
Meanwhile, Metro lines and highways are not being left behind.
The city's Metro Line 11 is expected to be extended to Jiangsu Province's Kunshan City by 2012. Other neighboring provinces such as Zhejiang are also considering linking their subways with the Shanghai network.
The wider use of electronic toll collection on highways to nearby cities is also a reflection of the blurring of regional borders. The e-toll network has extended to neighboring provinces: Jiangsu Province in 2008 and on to Anhui Province last year. Shanghai vehicles will be able to use e-toll lanes in Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces by the end of this year.
"It sounds a nice idea to me that I can get off work in the city and have dinner with my parents back home," said Lu who, like many non-locals working here, lives in a small rented apartment on his own.
He's talking about the Shanghai-Nanjing high-speed rail line which will start operating on July 1 after two years of construction.
The bullet train, which has a top speed of 350 kilometers per hour, will connect Shanghai to Nanjing, capital of neighboring Jiangsu Province 300 kilometers away, in a little less than an hour.
The Shanghai-Nanjing train is just one of five high-speed lines recently opened or set to open in the Yangtze River Delta, one of the country's most developed economic zones.
The Shanghai Railway Bureau, which is also responsible for rail services in Zhejiang, Jiangsu and part of Anhui, plans to invest more than 100 billion yuan (US$14.65 billion) this year in rail infrastructure mainly for high-speed trains.
The region's new rail system will have 6,849 kilometers of track by 2020, according to a 2005 plan for the Yangtze River Delta rail network, and allow passengers to travel between key Delta cities such as Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Ningbo within three hours.
The Shanghai-Nanjing line is expected to cut travel time between the two cities from more than two hours currently to under an hour. And there will be about 200 daily services, double the current capacity, including one train every five minutes during peak hours.
The Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway, which will start in October, will cut the journey from more than an hour currently to 38 minutes.
Both the new lines will operate from Shanghai's Hongqiao Railway Station.
But railway authorities have still not announced ticket prices for the high-speed journey, raising concerns.
Tickets will certainly be more expensive than on the current Shanghai-Nanjing line which cost from 93 to 112 yuan. "Hopefully it won't cost me too much," Lu said.
However, some passengers, especially migrant workers who make a hard living in the city, are worried that regular trains will be canceled and they will be compelled to use the more expensive high-speed trains.
Rail officials denied this, saying they would increase rail services instead of canceling some as the current services are far from adequate.
Meanwhile, Metro lines and highways are not being left behind.
The city's Metro Line 11 is expected to be extended to Jiangsu Province's Kunshan City by 2012. Other neighboring provinces such as Zhejiang are also considering linking their subways with the Shanghai network.
The wider use of electronic toll collection on highways to nearby cities is also a reflection of the blurring of regional borders. The e-toll network has extended to neighboring provinces: Jiangsu Province in 2008 and on to Anhui Province last year. Shanghai vehicles will be able to use e-toll lanes in Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces by the end of this year.
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