doctor_slump 2008-7-17 07:46 PM
Confusion over key Beijing Olympic subway lines
With three weeks to go before the Beijing Olympics begin, an official admitted on Thursday he had no idea when exactly three crucial new subway lines would open, though he added trains should be running early next week.
The three lines -- one of which goes to the international airport and the other to the Olympic Green -- had been due to open by late June, and are part of the city's massive infrastructure plans to ensure ease of transport over the Games.
"This question perplexes you reporters and it perplexes us too," Zhou Zhengyu, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications, told a news conference, after being asked multiple times to give an exact opening date.
"Before Monday. Today is Thursday, so we've still got Friday, Saturday and Sunday -- three days. We could open them over these three days. You can take it when you go out on Monday morning," Zhou added of the lines, which cost 22.3 billion yuan.
"At present all aspects of work have been completed," he said. "When we know the date for sure, we'll tell the media so you can come and report on it."
But Zhou sidestepped a question about whether that would give enough time to iron out any kinks before the Games open on August 8 and did not say if there had been any problems with construction that might have delayed the opening.
Beijing has largely avoided the problems the last Olympic host, Athens, had with delayed infrastructure projects, and has won praise from the International Olympic Committee for finishing venue construction work either on time or ahead of schedule.
As well as the new lines, the city has upgraded trains on existing older lines, the first of which dates from the 1960s, though some trains and stations will remain unairconditioned by the time the Olympics come in hot, sticky August.
Still, the new subways should relive congestion on the roads, a problem Beijing has suffered as rising incomes lead to a boom in car ownership.
Yet the new airport express line will not initially have one feature that officials had previously mooted -- a downtown check-in facility, which has worked successfully in other cities, most notably Hong Kong.
"This has worked extremely well in Hong Kong, and we have been there to inspect it," said Zhou, who added there was space to put check-in desks at the Beijing line's main downtown terminus.
"We have both international and domestic flights, so dealing with baggage would be complicated. We'll first open the line, and in the future at the appropriate time, we'll look further at this question," he said.