Note:  Read more about Curitiba’s wise urban planning in Natural Capitalism by Amory Lovins, pages 288-308 (full text available on-line).  I promise this blog isn’t an advertisement for Mr. Lovins, I just really like that book.

Beijing’s subway system is, by many measures, a convenient and well-run public transport system.  At two yuan (about 30 cents) per ride, it is very affordable by Chinese standards.  Its average daily ridership is over 5 million (serving a population of 22 million), and its 100+ stops on nine lines render most places in the downtown area accessible with an additional 15 yuan ($2.00) cab ride.  In comparison, New York City’s subway system has an average daily ridership of 5.2 million (serving a population of 8.3 million), 400+ stops and 26 lines.

By the year 2015, Beijing plans to double the number of lines to 18, with a total of 400+ stations (see map above).  Daily ridership is estimated to grow to 8 million.  All of this sounds like pretty good planning, right?

Wrong.

The picture below was taken during the morning rush hour at Tian Tong Yuan station, the next-to-northernmost station of the main north-south line (line 5).  Tian Tong Yuan is a residential “neighborhood” (more like a medium-sized city, population-wise, in any other country) about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) from downtown Beijing.

During most of the day, passengers enter the station directly without going through the maze that you see in the picture.  During rush hour, passengers are forced through the maze to control the flow of people into the station.

Even with the metered on-ramp, the subway cars are packed to the gills.

All but one of the reasons I love public transport are utterly negated by this commute 45 minutes of hell:

1)  Public transport is more time-efficient because passengers can read or work while commuting. The Beijing subway is so crowded that even those few people who are lucky enough to have the physical space to hold a book or newspaper most likely aren’t in the mood to read.

2) Public transport gives commuters a chance to relax and chill-out because they don’t have to pay attention to the road. At each stop, passengers must contort their bodies into complex yoga-like poses to let others off and on, not to mention the constant vigilance required to guard against being pickpocketed or having one’s testicles molested.

3) The timing of on-rail public transport is extremely predictable because there are no traffic jams. During rush hour, passengers often have to wait for several trains to pass before they can squeeze onto one.  Transfers to other lines can take several times as long during rush hour because the stations are so packed.

4)  At least I’m not idling on the freeway for two hours, cursing the traffic as my exhaust pipe unceasingly spews baby-killing toxins into the air (the only advantage they can’t take away from me).

I re-read what I just wrote and I’ll be damned if I’m not a whiny little princess.  You’ll have to take my word on this:  I am a huge fan of taking public transport and I have a relatively high tolerance for discomfort.  And yet, I have no problem saying that the rush hour subway commute from Tian Tong Yuan to downtown Beijing absolutely blows.

Let the finger-pointing begin!

First, Beijing needs some integrated urban planning.  According to a news report from July 2009, Tian Tong Yuan is home to 300,000 permanent residents, plus about the same number of migrants.  At the time the article was written, Tian Tong Yuan had one single road to downtown Beijing, a single public elementary school, and not one single public (nationally funded) hospital.  Not only do  Tian Tong Yuan residents need to commute long distances for their jobs, they also need to commute to school and commute to get a rectal exam.

It is senseless to build such a huge residential neighborhood at all, much less one located so far from downtown, with so few services nearby.  As I learned on a recent trip to Curitiba (a Brazilian city world-renowned for its wise urban planning and efficient public transport), a basic principle of city planning is to repeat cities, not to grow them.

In other words, planners should design a city’s infrastructure and services in a relatively small area for a relatively small population.  Once the city has successfully grown to that population, another city, with its own planning, infrastructure, and services, should be built nearby.  Clusters of cities can then be connected by a network of light rail and roads.  The worst thing to do is to continuously grow the original city beyond what was originally planned by, for example, building a huge residential neighborhood 20 km away from downtown with no services.  This isn’t a city, it’s a tumor.

China has plenty of opportunities to improve – its goal is to urbanize 300 million people (about the current population of the U.S.)  in the next four decades.  Some claim that China is building 20 new cities each year.  Hopefully China’s city planners will learn from their mistakes and eventually build some pleasant, efficient places to live and work.

Much of the blame also goes to Beijing’s subway planners.  I recently attended a talk by Dr. Shomik Mehndiratta, a transportation expert at the World Bank in Beijing.  He had some interesting ideas about how to improve the subway.

1)  Tiered pricing for level of comfort.  Those who are willing to pay more should have the choice to do so and enjoy certain advantages, such as cars with guaranteed seating, wi-fi, even breakfast.  Perhaps they could design first-class transfer paths in transfer stations.  This would draw more people who would otherwise drive, and could also subsidize the costs of providing better service to the poorer folks.

2)  Peak pricing.  The subway should cost more during rush hour so that those who are able to travel outside of rush hour have a greater incentive to do so, thus reducing the crowd during rush hour.  I’m not convinced that this idea would be very effective because as it stands, you’d have to be a masochist to take the subway during rush hour if you didn’t have to.

I used to think that maximizing ridership was the single most important factor in subway design, but I’ve come around to the side of those who also prioritize comfort.  Public transport shouldn’t merely serve the needs of those who have no other choice, it should be something that people choose even if they have other options.  After all, we all want to avoid killing babies (i.e., driving cars) if at all possible.

Thankfully, I no longer live in Tian Tong Yuan.  Unfortunately, I still take the subway.  Goal for this week: buy a bike.