DISTANCE: 37
TIME: 1 hr. 15 min.
THE JOURNEY
6:30 a.m.: Dr. Liu leaves Fragrant Hills housing complex, hops in his Fiat and weaves his way east to Beijing's Jingshun Highway.
6:58 a.m: Past early morning markets, horse-drawn carts and crowds of commuters on foot, Liu pays toll, merges on to Airport Expressway and continues south.
7:07 a.m.: Liu peels off into a parking lot, 25 kilometers of journey complete. A 5-minute walk to the Dongzhimen subway and he's sailing south again on Beijing Subway's Line 2.
7:40 a.m.: In crowded compartment Liu reads a report standing up. The train glides beneath Tiananmen Sq. Nine stops and 11 kilometres later he emerges at Changchunjie station to liberate his locked bicycle.
7:47 a.m.: After brief but mad dash on bike, Liu arrives at Xuanwu Hospital, locks bike and heads to cafeteria before 8 a.m. shift.
Dec 10, 2007 04:30 AM
The Star's foreign correspondents – from Washington to Beijing – describe a world of commuting horror stories beyond Toronto's urban sprawl.
BEIJING–With 3 million cars clogging this city's main arteries – and 1,000 more coming on to its streets every day – Beijingers have to be creative to cut commuting times in a city of 17 million people.
Dr. Liu Ya'ou knows this – better than most.
Every day, the 27-year-old neuroradiologist uses a mix of private, public and pedal power to transport him from his suburban home, nearly 40 kilometres northeast of Tiananmen Square, straight into the heart of the city.
Using car, subway and bike, Liu makes the daily commute in 1 hour and 15 minutes – saving 45 to 50 minutes each way, every single day.
"If you drive straight in, it's just too much trouble," the young doctor says, gripping the wheel of his lime-green Fiat Palio as we burrow down Jingshun Highway bound for central Beijing. "I tried at the beginning: it always takes two hours."
But isn't juggling three types of transport a bit of a hassle?
"It is a little bit of trouble," Liu smiles. "But it saves a great deal of time."
Indeed it does – about eight hours every week.
Like the GTA's 905 commuters, Beijingers are constantly seeking solutions to trim their commuting times.
But only a few find the formula. Liu is one. And his dividend is huge.
For the recently married Liu, it means he can spend more time with his geneticist wife, Shen Yuan, dining, watching movies and staying fit.
The couple moved into their 1,300-square-foot home in Hou Sha Yu Town, in the far reaches of Shunyi district, this past summer, to be close to Yuan's workplace.
Although far from Liu's work at Capital Medical University's Xuanwu Hospital, the location has other advantages.
Out here the corn is high, the air better and, on many days, the sky is blue. "I really like living in the suburbs," Liu says. "The air is definitely cleaner – and you can jog out here."
With the Beijing housing market skyrocketing, their new investment has also grown in value.
Two years ago, before the developer broke ground, the couple paid 500,000 yuan (about $66,500) for their home. Today the same house would cost twice that.
Liu's journey begins at 6:30 a.m. when the only people out on his street are neighbours walking their dogs.
But as he turns south, the suburbs quickly come to life: Many locals pedal bikes, a throng of commuters line up for buses, and merchants do a brisk business at fruit and vegetable stalls along the roadside.
All these scenes are new to Liu.
When he was finishing his internship at Xuanwu Hospital, he knew nothing about commuting. He lived in a dormitory right on campus – a two-minute walk from work.
"It was convenient," he says. "But it was also crowded and noisy."
At a toll booth at 6:58 a.m., Liu leans out his window and pays 5 yuan, about 65 cents, and slips into the southbound lanes of the Airport Expressway.
He's making excellent time now. Traffic has been light.
But it won't always be.
For now, China's 1.3 billion people own only 13 million cars – one car for every 100 citizens.
But that's changing rapidly. A galloping economy and rising incomes have made China the fastest growing car market in the world. Last year, car sales rose 26 per cent and the trend is expected to continue.
Total car ownership in China is expected to surpass that of the United States by 2025.
But the largest number of these private vehicles is concentrated in Beijing, and as we pass under the Siyuan Bridge at 7:04 a.m. we start seeing more of them.
"A friend of mine told me about an apartment complex not far from Dongzhimen subway station," Liu remarks. "I park there for 100 yuan (about $13.50) per month."
By 7:07 a.m., just as the Second Ring Road comes into view – the perimeter of Beijing's central business district – traffic is coming to a halt. Liu's timing is perfect. He deftly exits via an off-ramp and peels into the parking lot of a housing complex. He parks his car, leaps out, locks it and strides across the street and down into Beijing's subterranean transit system.
At 7:15 we slip into a modern, well-lit subway car at Dongzhimen Station, the doors close behind us, and instantly we're whisked south.
"Maybe someday I'll live in a smaller city," he says somewhat jokingly, "somewhere where you can have a little more time to enjoy life."
The car is packed with many people reading the morning newspapers.
Beijing's subway system opened the first of its four lines in 1965 and spans 114 kilometres. Ten other Chinese cities boast subway systems, and another six were given permission to break ground this year.
Liu will take the No. 2 line around a half circle, south and then west, arriving at the central business district's southeast corner at Changchunjie Station.
The trip takes 25 minutes.
At 7:40 Liu steps out onto the platform, strides up stairs and emerges once again into the din of Beijing's early morning traffic.
And in a flash he's across the street, unlocking his bicycle and pulling it loose from a public rack.
He steps on the left pedal and smilingly pushes off, disappearing into a small sea of bicycles and pedestrians.
Minutes later he'll park outside the hospital's cafeteria, just in time to grab a light breakfast.
That's commuting – Beijing style.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/284051
