Residents and users agree! New Metro lines are 'wonderful'
Jing'an Temple Station on Metro lines 2, 7 and 14 at 6pm on Thursday evening.
Davey Neill, a Grade 5 teacher at the Pudong Campus of Shanghai American School, lives in Jinqiao and couldn't wait to ride Metro Line 14 on Thursday when it opened.
"My family and I went from our door in Jinqiao to the Metro exit of Yuyuan Garden in just under 34 minutes. When I arrived in Shanghai in 2010, the only way to make that time was by helicopter," the Canadian expat told Shanghai Daily through e-mail on Thursday night.
"Bright, shiny and autonomous – this is what we hoped the future would look like. Line 14 is a wonderful compliment to the already amazingly robust Shanghai Metro," he wrote.
A boost in connections for residents to some of the farthest ends of the city's urban districts is a verdict shared by many people who have been waiting many years for Line 14 and the full Line 18 to open.
Statistics released on Friday for the passenger flows of several Metro lines on Thursday tell the story.
About 250,000 and 330,000 people respectively rode Line 14 and Line 18 on Thursday. On the same day, the number of passengers who took Line 16 dropped about 12 percent, and those who took Line 11 and Line 2 dropped 7 percent and 6 percent respectively, according to Shanghai Metro.
This was foreseen before the two lines opened, because Line 14, which runs from Jiading District to Pudong, and Line 18, which runs from Pudong to Baoshan District, provide alternatives to some existing lines which have been among the busiest of all Metro lines in Shanghai.
Some excited commuters told Shanghai Daily that the new lines had greatly reduced their daily commuting time.
Xiaoying lives in Zhenguang area in west Putuo District and works in a company near Longyang Road in Pudong. Her home and workplace are over 30 kilometers apart.
As the closest Line 2, 11 and 13 stations are still too far from her home, she used to drive from home to Weining Road Station on Line 2, park the car there and then take the Metro to her office. It still took her 90 minutes to reach the office, and every day she paid 32 yuan (U$5) to park her car.
The new Zhenguang Road Station on Line 14, she said, is located right at the gate of her residential complex.
"I walk less to the Metro station than to the public garage of our residential complex," she said. "Although I need to change to Line 18 from Line 14, now it takes only 50 minutes for me to reach my office, which is super to me."
Xiaoying said all her neighbors are excited about the opening of Line 14.
"The month before the line was expected to open, a lot of people went every day to check out progress on preparations for the opening," she said. "While the older ones were excited about conveniently travelling to Yuyuan Garden, the young ones were looking forward to reaching the Jing'an Temple shopping hub within 15 minutes."
Wang Ruimin, who lives in a residential complex near Wuning Road in Putuo, also benefits from the opening of Line 14. She used to take Line 13 at Wuning Road Station and then change to Line 7 to reach Jing'an Temple for work, but now Line 14 takes her directly to her destination.
"Previously I got on Line 13 at 8:10am and got off Line 7 at 8:30am, but now my travel time is cut short to 8 minutes," she said. "That saves me a lot of energy."
A man surnamed Liu, who lives in Zhoupu and works in Huamu in Pudong, said he used to take Line 18 and then change to Line 11, 16 and 2 to reach his office. But now the full Line 18 takes him directly to his office within only half an hour.
"I drove home on Thursday, and I was surprised that the road congestion was relieved a lot," he said. "I think many people have now opted to travel to work by Metro instead of car since the Metro could be an even greater time saver."
