Beijing will build a new ring road between its crowded third and fourth ring roads to ease traffic pressure, one of the city's new moves to improve public transportation and increase green travel, a municipal planning report released Wednesday said.
Several urban expressways totaling 28 kilometers in length - forming the new road dubbed the 3.5 Ring Road by media - will be built during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), said a report released by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.
The new road will better connect the capital's existing transport infrastructure with Beijing's subsidiary administrative center in the southwestern Tongzhou district, a new airport in the south-central Daxing district and other key areas.
The most traffic-clogged part of Beijing in 2015 was the North Third Ring Road, where cars ran at an average speed of 22.6 kilometers per hour, China Central Television reported in January.
In theory, the new roads will ease congestion between the two ring roads, Yin Zhi, dean of the Beijing Tsinghua Urban Planning and Design Institute of Tsing-
hua University, told the Global Times.
Yin added that although Beijing still needs time to fully address congestion, proper urban planning to facilitate public transportation forms the foundation of encouraging more citizens to take public transportation in order to create a green future.
Beijing will also finish constructing three high-speed subway lines that could run at top speeds of 160 kilometers per hour, the Beijing Daily reported on Wednesday. Intervals between subway train arrivals are also expected to be reduced to two and a half minutes on all Beijing subway lines by the end of 2020.
The total length of subway lines will increase from 527 kilometers to more than 900 kilometers by the end of 2020, and an Automated People Mover will also be built in Beijing's central business districts.
Four train stations, including a new Beijing East Railway Station, will be finished in 2020, and four new long-distance bus stations outside the city center will also be built to connect the capital with medium- and small-sized cities.
