Subway to link Taicang City

Authorities are considering extending Shanghai's Metro Line 11 to Jiangsu's Taicang City from Jiading District, the first time a subway in Shanghai would link to another city.

Taicang has allocated 2,310 square kilometers of land in Ludu County for construction, according to Xie Ming, mayor of Taicang.

Xie made the remarks at the 2008 Shanghai Metro Forum held in Taicang on Sunday.

A preliminary plan has Line 11 adding three stations in Taicang. The terminus of Line 11 will be built in Ludu. The line will also connect with subway lines to be built in Taicang.

The plan has been "supported" by the Development and Research Center of the State Council as well as the Jiangsu Development and Reform Committee.

The extension of the line should lengthen the distance between stations from two to four kilometers and accelerate the speed to more than 100 kilometers per hour because there will be fewer passengers at stations in the cities' rural areas, said Zhou Yimin, deputy director of the urban Metro department of China Communications and Transportation Association.

Most subway stations in Shanghai are about 1km apart and the trains reach a maximum speed of 80km per hour. Taicang is 10km away from Jiading and is famous for its crushed dried pork products.

City planners said the project will promote business ties between Shanghai and Taicang, particularly the ports of both cities. It will also speed up the process of economic development in the Jiading District.

Although a new railway network has been planned for the Yangtze River Delta Region, the Metro link will further facilitate commuters, the planners said. The 59km first phase of Metro Line 11 will link Shanghai's northern Jiading District to Shangnan Road in Pudong near the Sanlin Area, en route to the center of the city.

The first section of phase one will open in 2010 to connect the northern-most Chengbei Road to the downtown Jiangsu Road.

TAG: city link subway to taicang