The city of Chongqing is known for its spectacular skyline with modern skyscrapers, the broad Yangtze River, and spectacular mountains in and around the city. However, Chongqing’s mountainous topography may be beautiful, but it has proven to be quite an obstacle for the development of the city. As the city grows, better infrastructure and connectivity become more important. Steep mountains and broad rivers pose problems. However, the Chongqing Metro has been able to conquer all these obstacles, through a combination of tunnels, bridges and monorails. The metro has become vital to the city, and provides rapid, cheap and easy transportation everywhere. It has become a part of Chongqing’s unique culture and aesthetic, and is different from all other metro networks in the world.
History of the Chongqing Metro
Plans for a metro system in Chongqing have been around for a long time. Moving through the city is difficult, the city is known for its many many flights of stairs. Therefore a quick, reliable, and easy means of transport was more than welcome. Several tests for a metro have been done. In the 1960’s and 80’s several tunnels were drilled for test purposes. But nothing more came from it. Real plans for a metro system were only developed in the late 1990’s. In 1998 the final plans for the metro were made, and more than 40 years after the first test drills, the first metro line finally opened in 2005.
Present-Day
As of 2016, the city now has 4 metro lines. These connect the city centre, the Business districts, suburbs, train stations, and Jiangbei Airport. In 2015 these four lines handled over 630 Million passengers.
The first two lines of the metro are actually not real metro lines but Monorail lines. The steep mountains and deep rivers of the city are problems for regular underground metro lines. Therefore line one and two were built using Japanese monorail technology. This is what makes the Chongqing metro especially unique. The two lines form the largest monorail network in the world. The monorail trains can be spotted climbing the hills, crossing the rivers and running through mountains and even buildings.
Future Expansion
As the city of Chongqing grows so does its metro. The network will be expanded to double in size to 8 line in 2020, and 420 kilometres of rails. The long-term plan for 2050 sees an even larger extension to a massive 18 lines with 820 kilometres of rails. For comparison, the Shanghai metro currently has 14 lines with 588km. The final plan is aimed at integrating Chongqing city and the surrounding region into one large city, where commuters can easily move around the city.
The Chongqing metro has become an invaluable asset to the city. Crossing the mountains and rivers, it connects isolated neighbourhoods integrates them into one city. The metro offers a unique view of Chongqing, when we look out of the window we can see the skyscrapers, mountains and rivers, when we look inside the train, we see the people of Chongqing, that give character to the city.
about the author: Maxxelli
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