Shanghai will open three new metro lines by the end of the year, extending the total distance of the network to 230 kilometers authorities at the city subway’s construction headquarters announced.

Metro Line 6 will run south to north in Pudong, Metro Line 8 links Yangpu District with many downtown stops, and Metro Line 9 links Xuhui District with Songjiang, in Shanghai’s outskirts. There was no word on Metro Line 7.

China has been pushing to upgrade both Shanghai and Beijing’s extensive subway systems ahead of the 2008 Olympics and the 2010 World Expo, both seen as the country’s “coming out” to the world. This has come at a price as both cities’ systems have been marred by construction accidents.

In this year alone, seven have died building the cities’ underground systems. On March 28, 2007 a tunnel collapsed in Beijing, killing six on the under-construction line 10. It was the fifth accident on the line since construction began in 2005. And on April 3, 2007, a cement structure collapsed claiming the life of a worker at a construction site for Shanghai’s Metro Line 7.

Source: Shanghai Daily

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 11:02 am and is filed under Business, East China, Regions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.