Beijing has opened three new rail lines in a bid to reduce traffic gridlock ahead of next month's Olympic Games
© AFP/File Peter Parks BEIJING (AFP) - The new lines include a link to the main Olympic Stadium and a high-speed line to Beijing's new airport terminal, adding an extra 58 kilometres (36 miles) to the over-stretched subway system at a cost of 22.3 billion yuan (3.2 billion dollars).
Liu Qi, the head of the Beijing Olympic organising committee and secretary of the Beijing Communist Party, attended the Saturday morning ceremony for all three lines that went into service for the general public from 2:00 pm (0600 GMT).
"These lines are great," said Dieter Michell-Auli, head of mass transit operations for German firm Siemens, which supplied signalling and automation systems.
"The Chinese really went for the latest technology and the new lines are more advanced than more than 90 percent of the systems in Europe. Most places in the world are nowhere near this standard."
The opening comes a day ahead of the implementation of a broad traffic ban that will keep more than one million cars off Beijing's streets during the August 8-24 Olympics and will add significantly to the burden on the city's public transport system.
Commuters normally make 16 million trips a day by public transport but that will rise to more than 20 million as a result of the car ban, said Zhou Zhengyu, the deputy head of Beijing's transport committee.
He said subway passengers will increase from the current 3.3 million a day to more than four million and the length of track from 142 to 200 kilometres.
"We are confident that with these new subway lines we can help cope with the extra burden of commuters," he said.
Beijing now has eight subway lines following last year's opening of line five, part of a massive scheme to upgrade the system that will see an additional seven lines constructed by 2015.
The immediate focus, however, is on the Olympics and the city's poor air quality. Beijing's 3.3 million vehicles -- increasing by more than 1,000 a day -- have been identified as the chief sources of the city's pollution problem.
Beijing ordered the ban on cars in an effort to tackle the problem with less than three weeks before the Games open.
Cars with odd- and even-numbered licence plates will be ruled off the roads on alternate days for two months starting July 20.
Last year Chinese authorities conducted a similar scheme for three days and said that air pollution levels fell significantly as a result while traffic congestion was also curbed.
Beijing has opened three new rail lines in a bid to reduce traffic gridlock ahead of next month's Olympic Games
© AFP Peter ParksThe new subway lines boast state of the art stations with video screens, access for disabled people and air-conditioned cars.
The airport line links the downtown areas with Terminal Three, Beijing's new airport hub, with high-speed trains running every 15 minutes along the 27-kilometre route that will take around 20 minutes.
The 4.5-kilometre Olympic Branch Line is open only to Olympic ticket holders and accredited personnel such as athletes, officials and journalists during the Games and is geared to carry 220,000 passengers a day while the airport line is expected to carry a maximum of 50,000.
Line 10, which runs on a 25 kilometre right angle west to east and then north to south is expected to handle up to 850,000 a day.
©AFP