Op-Ed Contributors

London 'Tube' a test for Olympic organizers

By Zhang Haizhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-09 08:02

The strike, with three more expected next month and November, is a joint action by 11,000 Tube staff in protest over plans to axe 800 ticket office and station managerial jobs.

When I first arrived here nine years ago, the Tube was one of the things I liked most about London. I had never seen any other city with such a big underground network, one that made traveling so easy.

Since I returned to work in Beijing, three years ago, I never stopped complaining about how inconvenient the Beijing subway was compared to the London underground, until this week that is.

Beijing has actually upgraded its subway system significantly over the past three years. Three new lines - Lines 5, 8 and 10 - and the Airport Express opened before the 2008 Olympic Games, linking the huge city's main living areas, business centers, financial hubs, and key Olympic venues.

One more metro line, Line 4, opened one year after the Games, making the total system length of the lines 228 km. It is expected to reach 420 km by 2012. More than 5.6 million people use the system every day.

In London, the total system length of all 11 lines is approximately 400 km, carrying about 3.4 million people a day. Despite the figures, which suggest that the Beijing subway is more crowded, traveling by the Beijing subway is much more comfortable to some extent.

Trains running on the Beijing subway are much newer and spacious. Signal failures, which are a common occurrence in London, are quite rare in Beijing, and significantly, almost all of the trains and stations in Beijing are fully air-conditioned.

In comparison, only one London underground train is air-conditioned. Anyone who has traveled on the Central Line, a 74-km-line that runs across the center of the city, during the summer, will know how unbearably sweltering the crowded carriages can get.

Unfortunately, the 2012 Games will open in the hottest month of the year in Britain. Apart from building the brand new Crossrail, London should focus on how to improve its underground system.

The author is China Daily's chief correspondent based in London.

(China Daily 09/09/2010 page8)