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Two subways lines broke down in Beijing on Friday morning, making the rush hour traffic even worse by forcing tens of thousands of commuters to either wait for services to resume or flock to nearby bus stops.
Millions of commuters count on the capital city's metro, currently priced at 2 yuan no matter of mileage, making it one of the busiest and so far cheapest transport systems in the world.
Part of the No. 10 Line conked out at 6:00 am and lasted for more than two hours, causing suspension of some sections, return of trains, and temporary closure of transfers.
To add more misery to passengers rushing to work, massive delays also paralyzed the No 5 Line.
The underground traffic went back to normal at 9:00 am.
The glitch happened two days prior to the D-Day of the city's new metro pricing policies, prompting frustrated passengers to pour out their long-simmering anger over the price increase on Sina Weibo, China's popular microblogging service.
The social networking site was flooded with posts of people sharing their experience of waiting for a bus in chilly winter wind, making sarcastic comments about the upcoming price increase and checking up on the updates.
Metro staffers found themselves busy with a new task – helping passengers get away from consequences of being late for work by signing their waivers.
Some passengers stuck underground took pictures of the notice screen in hopes of clearing themselves out of responsibility.
Starting Dec 28, subway fare will increase to 3 yuan for the first 6 km and charged according to mileage with no ceiling.
