more subways

I long since gave up reading articles on the expansion of Beijing’s subway system because they’re so repititive, but today I opened this one in 新京报/The Beijing News and decided, why not?:

5条地铁线明年将通车

5 new subway lines open next year

明年北京将有5条地铁新线建成通车，包括大兴线、亦庄线、昌平线一期、房山线以及15号线一期，6号线、8号线及9号线也有望分段开通运营。昨日召开的“2009中国城市轨道交通关键技术论坛”上，北京市交通委相关负责人透露了上述消息。

Next year construction of 5 new subway lines in Beijing, the Daxing Line, Yizhuan Line, Phase 1 of the Changping Line, the Fangshan Line as well as Phase 1 of Line 15, will be complete and they will be open to traffic. Segments of Line 6, Line 8 and Line 9 hopefully will also be open to traffic. The relevant person in charge at the Beijing municipal transport committee revealed this information at the “2009 Chinese Urban Rail Key Technology Forum” held yesterday.

The rest I don’t really want to translate, it’s the same old fluff, but it does, naturally, come with some pretty impressive statistics:

…确保2010年实现地铁开通300公里，2012年达到420公里，2015年达到561公里。今年至2015年这7年间，轨道交通建设总投资将达2080亿元，其中今年计划投资389亿元，明年计划投资511亿元。

…ensure the realisation of having 300 kilometres of subway line running in 2010, reaching 420 kilometres in 2012 and 561 kilometres in 2015. In the seven years from this year to 2015, the total amount invested in rail transport construction will reach 208 billion yuan, of which 38.9 billion is planned to be invested this year and 51.1 billion next year.

Wow.

Also, taken randomly from parts of the article I didn’t translate:

• There are currently 7 lines under construction, and within the year the number of lines under construction will reach 13, with a total length of 317 kilometres and 206 stations.
• The subway system currently handles 23% of public transport passenger volume. That is planned to be over 50% by 2015.
• The subway network will very comprehensively cover the downtown area in 2015, and there will be 7 lines coming into the city centre from the outer suburbs.