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Five new subway lines opened in the capital city on Thursday, in the latest bid to ease the city's gridlocked traffic.
The five new subway lines - Fangshan Line, Changping Line, the first phase of the No 15 Line, Yizhuang Line and Daxing Line - have a combined length of 108 kilometers, bringing the city's total metro length to 336 km and the total number of subway lines to 14.
The new lines, built at a cost of nearly 61 billion yuan ($9.24 billion), link Beijing's suburban districts of Fangshan, Changping, Shunyi and Daxing with downtown areas.
The five lines began transporting passengers at 2 pm on Thursday, charging a ticket price of 2 yuan (30 cents).
On the Fangshan Line, trains will run at a top speed of 100 km per hour, making the line the fastest among all metro trains in operation in China, according to a report by Beijing Youth Daily.
The five new lines will slash travel times for many commuters who live outside the downtown area.
Residents in the Wangjing area, a big residential compound between the city's fourth and fifth north ring roads, said the new No 15 subway line will make their daily commute far more convenient.
Cao Wenning, 45, who waited outside the Wangjing subway station for more than 20 minutes before the subway line's opening on Thursday, said she was excited and could not wait to try the new track.
Cao, who has been living in Wangjing for 14 years, said the area was called "sleeping city" 10 years ago, because people left in the morning to work and returned at night to sleep. The traffic at rush hour was terrible, she said.
"The opening of this new line is the biggest event in the past 10 years for residents here."
But the five new lines will not be enough to fix the city's traffic congestion, said Zhang Changqing, director of the transportation law institute at Beijing Jiaotong University.
Currently, Beijing's metro network carries more than 5 million passengers every day, according to Xinhua News Agency.
The city plans to have 30 subway lines by 2020, with a total track length of more than 1,000 km, enabling all residents to reach a subway station in 15 to 20 minutes' walk, according to the city's plan for rail transportation from 2011 to 2020.
The city will spend 150 billion yuan over the next five years to increase the density of metro lines in downtown areas, Beijing Infrastructure Investment Co Ltd said on Wednesday.
Questions
1 What happened this week in Beijing’s traffic news?
2 How far do the new lines go?
3 What is the total length of Beijing’s metro?
Answers
1. Five new subway lines opened in the capital city on Thursday
2. The five new subway lines - Fangshan Line, Changping Line, the first phase of the No 15 Line, Yizhuang Line and Daxing Line - have a combined length of 108 kilometers
3. 336 kilometers, with 14 subway lines
（中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)網(wǎng)英語點(diǎn)津 Julie 編輯）
About the broadcaster:
Nelly Min is an editor at China Daily with more than 10 years of experience as a newspaper editor and photographer. She has worked at major newspapers in the U.S., including the Los Angeles Times and the Detroit Free Press. She is also fluent in Korean.
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