The fact that I am obsessed with subways will come as news to nobody. Some may even recognize the title of this post. For those that don't, it was also the title of my college essay. Yes, I wrote about subways, and still got into college. Given my penchant for all things mass transit related (except, of course, buses, which I hate), I have been meaning to dedicate a post to the Shanghai Metro system. Caveat emptor: this rest of this post will likely interest only a few of you (I can count like 5...maybe). If you get bored, I won't be offended. Remember...this blog is for me.
So it also shouldn't be much of a shock that I was already familiar with the Shanghai Metro before I even arrived. I lived here for 10 weeks in 2008, and since I tend to, through osmosis, pick up on a city's subway system after, oh, two days or so, it would be a pretty good bet to assume that I had the Shanghai Metro pretty much pegged. And you'd be right...except that it's changed. When I was here four years ago, there were 7 Metro lines in service. Now, there are 11. Think about that, for a second, particularly the many of you who live in New York. Shanghai has built 4 fully functional Metro lines from scratch in 4 years. Our lovely Second Avenue Subway line was proposed in....1929. Nearly 100 years later, we're still digging.
And that's not all. The Shanghai Metro system opened in 1995. 17 years later, in 2012, it sports 270 miles of track, making it the largest Metro system by track length in the entire world. Not in China. Not in Asia. On the planet. Line 2 alone now stretches several miles beyond Hongqiao Airport in the West, to Pudong Airport in the East, a distance of about 40 miles (for context, if we built a subway from JFK to Newark Airport, it would only be about 30 miles...and can anyone really envision that ever happening??).
So here it is, a map of the Shanghai Metro as it stands today:
Pretty Cool
Just to belabor the point further, here's a cool rendering of the system, as it is planned, in 2020:
Even Cooler
In case you're having trouble counting, that's 18 lines planned for 2020. For those keeping score...Shanghai: 18 Metro lines in 30 years. New York: 0 Second Avenue Subway Lines in almost 100.
To be sure, the system's sheer size is not nearly enough to earn my metro-related good graces. But the Shanghai Metro system acquits itself in many other ways as well. Most obvious to any casual rider, it is CLEAN. The stations may not be glitzy like in Paris or Moscow, but boy do they keep the Metro shiny here. It is also, not surprisingly for the Chinese, incredibly efficient. I have yet to wait more than 7 minutes for a train, including during the evenings and weekends. The trains are incredibly crowded, virtually all the time, but their design allows for far more standing room than any other subway system I've ridden on. I'd guess that at least three times as many people can comfortably fit on a Shanghai Metro train than on a New York City subway train.
The stations are incredibly easy to navigate, with ample signage pointing out available exits and transfer directions. The ground is plastered with arrows that guide you to your connecting train. One particularly simple feature that I don't think I've seen anywhere else (but could be wrong): every station exit is numbered. The People's Square Station, one of the biggest in town, has 18 exits, but since each of them is numbered, you can just say "I'll meet you at Exit 14" rather than "Oh, you know, the exit next to the Starbucks on the opposite side of the street from whats-it-called." Makes coordinating a meet infinitely easier. The stations are also incredibly well maintained. On Friday afternoon, I noticed an escalator was out at the Jing'An Temple station where I get off for work. On Monday morning when I returned, it was fixed. Anyone who has ridden the Washington D.C. Metro ought to find this HILARIOUS.
To get really nerdy for a second: the system also passes what I like to call the "spaghetti test." I'll explain. A subway system ought to be judged on how efficiently it truly is at getting people to the places they want to go. In other words, there's nothing that says a train line has to follow the street paths. The most efficient systems are the ones that resemble, at least in the downtown areas, a wall after you throw a handful of wet spaghetti at it. The lines should weave around the most popular spots in town, not arbitrarily follow Lexington Avenue or Connecticut Avenue. Obviously, that's easier said than done from a construction standpoint. But the Shanghainese have done a pretty good job at it - just take a look at that map again.
I could go on and on, but I'll stop. The system certainly has its drawbacks. First and foremost, it closes before midnight - which is why, despite all of the above, I'll still take NYC over Shanghai simply because it is open 24 hours. It is also extremely crowded, all the time -- though this is more a condemnation of the system's riders than the system itself, since Chinese people simply don't have the same set of manners or concept of personal space as Americans do. But mostly, it works as well if not better than any system I've ever ridden, like clockwork, pretty much like everything else in this strange country seems to work -- as if controlled by a not-so-invisible hand.
So here it is, a map of the Shanghai Metro as it stands today:
Pretty Cool
Just to belabor the point further, here's a cool rendering of the system, as it is planned, in 2020:
Even Cooler
In case you're having trouble counting, that's 18 lines planned for 2020. For those keeping score...Shanghai: 18 Metro lines in 30 years. New York: 0 Second Avenue Subway Lines in almost 100.
To be sure, the system's sheer size is not nearly enough to earn my metro-related good graces. But the Shanghai Metro system acquits itself in many other ways as well. Most obvious to any casual rider, it is CLEAN. The stations may not be glitzy like in Paris or Moscow, but boy do they keep the Metro shiny here. It is also, not surprisingly for the Chinese, incredibly efficient. I have yet to wait more than 7 minutes for a train, including during the evenings and weekends. The trains are incredibly crowded, virtually all the time, but their design allows for far more standing room than any other subway system I've ridden on. I'd guess that at least three times as many people can comfortably fit on a Shanghai Metro train than on a New York City subway train.
The stations are incredibly easy to navigate, with ample signage pointing out available exits and transfer directions. The ground is plastered with arrows that guide you to your connecting train. One particularly simple feature that I don't think I've seen anywhere else (but could be wrong): every station exit is numbered. The People's Square Station, one of the biggest in town, has 18 exits, but since each of them is numbered, you can just say "I'll meet you at Exit 14" rather than "Oh, you know, the exit next to the Starbucks on the opposite side of the street from whats-it-called." Makes coordinating a meet infinitely easier. The stations are also incredibly well maintained. On Friday afternoon, I noticed an escalator was out at the Jing'An Temple station where I get off for work. On Monday morning when I returned, it was fixed. Anyone who has ridden the Washington D.C. Metro ought to find this HILARIOUS.
To get really nerdy for a second: the system also passes what I like to call the "spaghetti test." I'll explain. A subway system ought to be judged on how efficiently it truly is at getting people to the places they want to go. In other words, there's nothing that says a train line has to follow the street paths. The most efficient systems are the ones that resemble, at least in the downtown areas, a wall after you throw a handful of wet spaghetti at it. The lines should weave around the most popular spots in town, not arbitrarily follow Lexington Avenue or Connecticut Avenue. Obviously, that's easier said than done from a construction standpoint. But the Shanghainese have done a pretty good job at it - just take a look at that map again.
I could go on and on, but I'll stop. The system certainly has its drawbacks. First and foremost, it closes before midnight - which is why, despite all of the above, I'll still take NYC over Shanghai simply because it is open 24 hours. It is also extremely crowded, all the time -- though this is more a condemnation of the system's riders than the system itself, since Chinese people simply don't have the same set of manners or concept of personal space as Americans do. But mostly, it works as well if not better than any system I've ever ridden, like clockwork, pretty much like everything else in this strange country seems to work -- as if controlled by a not-so-invisible hand.
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