Beijing Subway System

The construction of Beijing Subway System was started in 1965. It took almost 5 five years to build the first portion (Line 1) which runs between Beijing Railway Station and Pingguoyuan. Due to expansion and development of the city, the circular line of Beijing Subway (Line 2) was constructed in 1982 and into use in 1987. Ever since than, both lines started operating separately. In the early 1900’s the government had an eastern extension of Line 1 built and finally opened for trial in Oct. 1999 for the People's Republic's 50th anniversary. The new section was eventually connected to the western section of Line 1 on 24 June 2000 which had been upgraded to ATO operation.The entire Line 1 from Pingguoyuan to Sihuidong is now 38 km long and provides transfer to Ring Line 2 twice, at Fuxingmen and at Jianguomen. Line 2 is 16 km long, so the total network operating in 2000 is 54 km. Most stations have central platforms and are 118m long, but only 10 have escalators. 4 or 6-car-trains are used, which are equipped with acoustic station announcement. For future extensions of the network some stations have already been built as transfer stations: Xizhimen, Dongsishitiao, Jianguomen, Yonghegong and Jishuitan.

City Light Rail (Line 13) was started to construct in December 1999 and finally went into operation in 2003. The semicircular line with 16 stations runs from Xizhimen to Dongzhimen (both are stations on the circle Line 2). The 40.8 km line is mainly above ground, either elevated (7.7 km) or at grade (30.3km).

As Beijing is going to held Olympics in 2008, the local authority has an ambitious plan to construct Subway Line 4 (a 28.6 km north-south subway in the west part of Beijing), Subway Line 5 (a 27.6-km north-south subway in the east part of Beijing) and Subway Line 10 (particularly built for easy travel access to Beijing Olympic Competition Venues.

Beijing Subway System daily operates from 05:10 am to 23:40 pm. Fare for riding only on Line 1 and 2 is 3Yuan/person (USD0.4/person); it for Line 13 is 5Yuan/person (USD0.6/person).

Beijing Travel News: New Beijing subway line begins test run