New subway, rail lines to open for Beijing Games

Beijing’s two new subway lines and a new rail line should be running Sunday and serving millions of passengers by the opening of the Olympics in three weeks.

Zhou Zhengyu, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications, said Sunday was the likely opening day, but hedged slightly while speaking Thursday to reporters. He said the lines would be operating no later than Monday, and suggested they might even be open on Friday or Saturday.

The new public transport should complement a strict vehicle reduction plan, which goes into force Sunday, to cut Beijing’s intense traffic. The plan, designed to keep about half of Beijing’s 3.3 million vehicles off the road during the Olympics, will allow vehicles on the road every other day depending on even or odd registration numbers.

The three new lines, which officials say cost $3.3 billion, are behind schedule in opening.

“Since a lot of suppliers are involved -- for example, the railway and signal equipment is produced by joint enterprises and some of the signal suppliers are from other countries -- we needed a lot of coordination and joint efforts,” Zhou said. “In this process there were some technical problems that could not be avoided.”