Chinese metro expansion reaches new climax
Posted on 13th January 2025 at 15:54
The headlong drive to build new metro lines and extensions in China saw over 550km added to the country’s networks in the last quarter of 2024, with 350km opening in December alone. The country now boasts nearly 11 000km of metro in 54 cities, a remarkable achievement, given that the first metro line was built in the capital with Russian assistance, opening in 1969, followed by Tianjin in 1984. Today Beijing has the world’s largest metro network, covering 879km with 522 stations. Shanghai is not far behind with 831km, and actually carries more passengers than Beijing (over 13M/day in March 2024).
As always there are a wide range of metro types within the definition of urban mass transit systems. In China they range from the automated rubber-tyred mini-metro in Macau to the Shanghai Airport Link Line which, as the name implies, links the city’s two airports by an orbital route with 160 km/h trains; 60.5km of the 68.6km line is in tunnel. There are four intermediate stations including one metro interchange with line 15 at Jinghong Road. Such is the demand for travel that China has developed the concept of the express metro to provide additional capacity, for instance in the Guangzhou/Foshan conurbation, where you can find the 58.3km line 18 with just eight stations relieving conventional line 3.
Notable amongst the recent openings are the aforementioned Shanghai Airport Link Line from Hongqiao Airport in the west to Pudong Airport in the east, the 44.2km Circle Line 11 in Guangzhou, and the 50km Circle Line 8 in Xi’an (a system now exceeding 400km). Beijing opened two new lines (3 and 12). Macau opened its Hengqin line, just 2.2km but linking Taipa island to the Chinese mainland by mass transit for the first time. The Henan capital Zhengzhou opened its seventh and eight metro lines adding 78.6km to the 373km network with the first line dating from 2013. Two lines in this city were extended in November.
Photo: A class SFM-86 train on Beijing line 3 departs Dongsi Shitao station on opening day. (N509FZ CC BY-SA 4.0).

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