Home » Metro » Public Services
Residents balk at bus route changes
Print Edition
AS Shanghai’s Metro system expands and overtakes buses as the primary source of travel in the city, bus lines are undergoing route alterations that don’t always sit well with local residents.
Like a small group of people who live in a Qibao Town residential complex in what is the terminus of Bus Route 911. The company operating the route wants to merge it with an overlapping service and move the terminus five kilometers away. The residents balk at the proposal.
“Having Bus 911 was what the property company promised us when we purchased our home,” said resident Tang Yinuo, 75.
Twenty years ago, when her complex was built, Qibao was considered the far outskirts of the city and bus transport was the only public means of getting downtown. Nowadays, Metro services reach into outlying suburbs.
“The proposed bus route change would be inconvenient for elderly people,” said Tang, who often takes the 911 bus downtown.
It’s a common problem underpinning expansion of the city’s mass transit service. Even as Shanghai was building the world’s longest subway system, it was also developing an extensive bus network, including long-distance routes extending up to 40 kilometers.
Now those lines are losing passengers to the faster Metro service as the subway’s tentacles extend further out from the city center. “Such dilemmas are often seen when public services are rearranged,” Yao Shangjian, a professor of government theory at East China University of Political Science and Law, told Shanghai Daily.
“A change in bus routes is not an isolated example,” he said. “It’s a difficult task in city governance — how to balance the public’s need between the greater good and the interests of a small pocket of residents.”
Shanghai Ba-shi Public Transportation Group, the biggest bus company on the west bank of the Huangpu River, said it created 30 new routes, extended 10, altered 17, shortened seven and discontinued six this year.
The city had 1,377 bus routes with a daily traffic of 7.3 million people by the end of last year. While the daily traffic of metro service reached 7.75 million.
In November, the city government published proposed changes to more than 24 routes. That was followed this month by recommended alterations to another 28 routes.
At the same time, municipal transit officials have published a draft set of new standards for canceling routes or setting up new ones. It says that routes may be discontinued if there are fewer than 100 passengers per 100 kilometers or if the routes parallel the Metro network. The official regulation, which is expected to reduce disputes over route changes, will be released early next year. The problem is that bus routes can become like old friends to longtime residents of an area.
Bus Line 911 is but one example of what can happen if that familiar relationship is threatened. Its route has been the subject of alteration discussions for years, amid steadfast local opposition. The 21.4km route through the Huangpu, Xuhui and Minhang districts has 31 stops. Half of them overlap another bus route.
According to the newest city proposals, the terminus of Bus 911 should be moved out of the residential complex to avoid congestion in the area along Huqingping Highway and relocated about five kilometers away. A shuttle bus would ferry residents to the Bus 911 line.
“That would mean a transfer in the middle of the journey into town,” said resident Tang. “A lot of us residents are not youngsters, and it’s an effort for us to get on and off buses.”
There is a bit of an age gap where the debate is concerned. Younger residents in the area seem to prefer Metro services, with lines 9 and 10 now connecting to the area. A Metro station is within a 15-minute walk from Bus 911’s terminus.
“The subway is crowded, but it’s much faster and travel times are more reliable,” said Amy Yuan, a resident waiting in the Qibao Station of Line 9. “You never don’t know how long it might take on a bus if there’s congestion on the roads.”
At 8:30 one weekday morning, only 10 passengers climbed aboard the bus at the 911 terminus.
“When I first moved here in 1998, people queued up every morning to get on the bus,” Tang said.
Despite declining passengers, the bus tries to ensure its posted 15-minute intervals.
One Bus 911 driver, surnamed Kong, said that a single journey takes 90 minutes if traffic is light and up to three hours if the roads are congested. There’s little time for a break between runs.
“We have time only to rush to the toilet and refill our water bottles,” Kong said. “There aren’t enough drivers and we have to maintain the schedule. If we don’t leave straightaway, the interval between buses becomes longer and longer.”
According to the bus company, a proposed merger of two routes will actually shorten the journey by nearly an hour. It would also increase passenger usage and decrease the workload on drivers.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
