Shanghai’s Metro network is expanding at an astonishing pace and is expected to cover 1.56 million square meters by 2010.
City planners envisage a world-class service, integrating the airport, expressway, rail, Metro and magnetic levitation line (Maglev), geared to handle a daily capacity of 1.1 million people.
The subway now occupies 320,000 square meters of space in Shanghai, experts said yesterday at the 2007 Forum on Chinese City Under-Space.
Urban construction experts and scholars from across the country discussed plans and hot issues on developing underground infrastructure at the forum’s opening in Shanghai.
According to Ying Minghong, chairman of Shanghai Shentong Metro Group, by the end of this year the Metro will occupy 680,000 square meters of underground space in the city.
“Shanghai has five Metro lines in operation, but by the end of this year there will be eight lines covering more than 230 kilometers with 163 Metro stations,” Ying said.
“By 2010, Shanghai will have 11 Metro lines, totaling more than 400 kilometers with 274 stations.
“Metro lines 12 and 13 will be built by 2012, when the Metro transportation network will cover more than 500 kilometers.”
The Metro network now handles 16 percent of the city’s overall public transport volume.
The development and utilization of underground space in the city has exceeded 16 million square meters, occupying 2.7 percent of the Shanghai central downtown area which is 600 square kilometers.
Miu Yuning, an expert in the under-space design department of the Shanghai Municipal Engineering Design and Research Institute, said the Hongqiao integrated transport hub would be completed by the end of 2009 and be operating for the 2010 World Expo.
The facility, near the Hongqiao International Airport, will start from the Outer Ring Road in the east to Huaxiang Road in the west, stretching from Beidi Road in the north to the Huqingping Highway in the south, covering a floor area of 26.26 square kilometers.
(Source: en.beijing2008.cn)
