Talking Travel: Your semi-regular roundup of Beijing's latest transportation-related news.
Beijing-Zhangjiakou-Hohhot and Datong high-speed line now open
Just before the New Year, Beijing heralded the opening of the new 174km Beijing-Zhangjiakou (AKA Jingzhang High Speed Railway) train line, which will transport passengers from the capital to the Hebei to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics venues and ski resorts.
Opening on Dec 30, and touted as the world’s first automated high-speed rail line, it also boasts an underground Badaling Great Wall stop as well as a 52.2km Chongli high-speed rail line, which ends to serve the Olympic Village in Prince Edward City.
Beijing-Harbin now only takes 4.5 hours
The Beijing-Harbin-Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao corridor has also expanded, allowing train travel from Beijing to Shenyang in Liaoning province to 2.5 and Beijing to Harbin in 4.5 hours, down from 7.5 hours.
Shuangjing transfer between Line 7 and 10 finally opens
Despite Shuangjing being one of the city's busiest stations, the Line 10 platforms were not originally designed to handle additional interchange traffic and deemed unsuitable for additional transfer traffic. Now work will begin on an interchange hall in the northeast corner of Shuangjing overpass (Exit B).
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Things started strong for Chinese search giant Baidu as they became one of the first companies to secure licenses to test self-driving cars carrying human passengers on designated roads in Beijing. The announcement on Dec 31, puts Baidu one step closer towards the launch of its commercial robot-taxi fleet in mainland China, dubbed Apollo Go.
Baidu's tech competitors Tencent and Alibaba are also conducting self-driving car tests, with the former securing a license from the Chinese government to begin testing autonomous cars in Shenzhen, while the latter is currently looking to hire around 50 engineers for its AI research lab.
Strict license plate laws in Beijing are driving desperate commuters to resort to sham marriages, reports the SCMP. The news, first aired by CCTV, outlined how some motorists were paying agencies up to RMB 160,000 (USD 22,700) to help organize a sham marriage with an owner of prized plates, which allows them to transfer the plates into their name before getting a divorce.
The measures are a knock-on effect of Beijing's strict limitations as to how plates are issued per year, with 2,600 applicants for every petrol-powered vehicle plate. Those who want a license for an electric car may need to wait until 2028.
Meanwhile, the government has also been steadily lowering the annual quota for new local licenses from 240,000 in 2013 to 100,000 last year. The result is that car owners are having to resort to more and desperate measures to secure a plate that will allow them access to the capital's roads.
In 2018, the city's rail transit passenger volume was 3.89 billion, and the ground bus passenger volume was 3.19 billion, marking that Beijing is ushering in a true "subway era," according to Xinhua.
Delta Air Lines will move operations from Beijing Capital International Airport to Beijing's Daxing International Airport in March 2020. The relocation parallels Delta's SkyTeam partner China Eastern's move to the new airport south of Beijing.
Images: Railly News, Travel China Guide, The Points Guy, Wikipedia, Weibo, China Daily, Devon Line, Jesse Lee (via Twitter)
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