Beijing’s recently opened metro lines offer new experiences in urban transit
In 1994, I was staying near Yonghegong, famed for its historic Lama Temple, nearby was a metro station. It became my main way of reaching downtown, relatively easily to areas such as Qianmen. The ‘Loop Line’, as Line 2 was called then, dates back to the early 1980s and followed underground the course of Beijing’s former Ming Dynasty walls. Many stations ended with the suffix “-men” (gate) through those walls. Fares were only 5 jiao (0.5 yuan) with passengers purchasing a paper ticket to board the trains. Such tickets were discontinued just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I became very familiar with that line and particularly enjoyed arriving at Qianmen with the mighty Zhengyangmen Gate rising outside the entrance.
At that time, Beijing had two lines. Line 1, the original east-west line, China’s first subway line, ran initially from Beijing Railway Station (now part of the Loop Line) for 21 kilometers toward the Western Hills. It came into operation on January 15, 1971, and was finally extended eastwards, running under Chang’an Avenue to Sihuidong in June 2000.
