Beijing to build new ring road to ease traffic

Beijing, Feb 26: China's capital Beijing will build a new ring road to ease traffic pressure, one of the city's new moves to improve public transportation and increase eco-travel, a municipal planning report released Wednesday said.

Several urban expressways totalling 28 km in length - forming the new road dubbed the 3.5 Ring Road - will be built during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), the Global Times reported on Friday.

The new road will connect the capital's existing transport infrastructure with Beijing's subsidiary administrative centre in the southwestern Tongzhou district, a new airport in 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 km per hour.

Beijing will also finish constructing three high-speed subway lines that could run at top speeds of 160 km per hour. 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 km to more than 900 km by the end of 2020.

Four new train stations, including a new Beijing East Railway Station, will be finished in 2020, and four new long-distance bus stations outside the city centre will also be built to connect the capital with medium- and small-sized cities.

IANS