bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Toh Han Shih

Beijing and Shanghai will spend hundreds of billions of yuan expanding their metro rail systems by hundreds of kilometres in the coming years, according to speakers at the China Modern Rail Summit in Beijing.
Between now and 2015, Beijing will spend about 35 billion yuan (HK$39.8 billion) a year to  expand its metro system from 230 kilometres to 561 kilometres, said Wang Jiangyan,  the China director of transport and urban planning at Parsons Brinckerhoff, a US infrastructure consulting firm.
That was the official target of  Beijing's government, said Wang, who consults for the metro systems of cities including Beijing and Shanghai. 
She said the  capital's government  was considering a  plan to increase the length of the city's metro system to 2,000 kilometres by 2050. 
'The government wants to make Beijing an international city like New York, London and Tokyo,' Wang said. 
Shanghai's plan, which has yet to be officially finalised, is to increase the length of its  metro system to 780 kilometres by 2030 from the current 312 kilometres, Wang said. 
Based on her estimate that the cost of a metro  line in Beijing is 700 million yuan per kilometre, the cost of expanding Shanghai's rail system would be about 328 billion yuan. 
'I agree the infrastructure costs are huge,' she said. 'It's quite a heavy burden. Another worry is Beijing has reduced the subway fare to two yuan for a trip to anywhere within the city. There have been concerns that this issue has to be addressed in the near future.'
Under Beijing's current system  for funding its metro rail projects, 40 per cent of the funds come from the municipal government, 20 per cent from local district governments and 40 per cent from financing, such as bank loans. 
The proposal to expand Beijing's metro  network is part of an urban master plan developed  late  last year and to begin this year. It envisages a decentralisation of Beijing, whose centre is highly concentrated and where property prices are soaring, by developing 11 new townships in various parts of the city.
Recently, the State Council approved metro lines for 22 cities costing  882 billion yuan, said Chen Jing, the sales manager of Beijing Huaxinjie Investment Consulting, a state-controlled firm that does research for the government as well as foreign firms. 
At present, there are 10 cities in the country with metro lines, with a total length of 835.5 kilometres.



Beijing and Shanghai to undertake huge expansions of metro systems