Experts call for rail upgrade in Bay Area
The interconnectivity among cities in the Guangdong-Hong KongMacao Greater Bay Area should be improved, especially with more high-speed rails and maglev trains, to meet development needs, urban planning and rail experts have urged.
They made the call at a symposium on Thursday on advanced rail transit development in the Bay Area, co-organized by Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Southwest Jiaotong University and relevant research institutes and think tanks across the region.
As the Bay Area has a land area and population bigger than those of other major bay areas in the world, it needs a more advanced and wellweaved high-speed rail network to boost interconnection and transport efficiency among the 11 cities, said Zhang Xiaochun, chairman of the Shenzhen Urban Transport Planning Center (SUTPC) — a transportation planning consultancy firm affiliated to the Shenzhen government.
High-speed rails, which can run as fast as 300 kilometers per hour, should replace most existing intercity trains and become the mainstream in inter-city transport in the Bay Area, he stressed.
The SUTPC is studying the feasibility of starting more high-speed rail projects between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, according to Zhang.
At present, only the Guangzhou Shenzh en-Hong Kong Express Rail Link, the Hong Kong section of which was launched in September last year, runs between the special administrative region and Shenzhen.
The SUTPC, together with relevant governments, is trying to improve the high-speed rail network on the west coast of the Pearl River Estuary, such as Zhuhai, Zhongshan and Jiangmen, to meet a balanced development in the region.
According to Guangdong’s provincial railway development plan, all 21 prefectural-level cities in the province will be covered by highspeed or rapid transit railways by next year.
Among possible solutions, Zhang urged the rail transportation sector to study the feasibility of building a high-speed maglev line, with a maximum speed of 600 km/h, to link up Guangzhou’s city center, the free trade zones in Nansha and Qianhai, and the airports in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
“In the Bay Area development, the transportation network is the most fundamental and crucial part to be improved,” Zhang said.
A high-speed maglev train is faster, steadier, safer and more prompt than conventional high-speed rail, with less maintenance costs, according to a fellow of the Chinese Academy of Engineering Qian Qingquan, who’s also a professor at Southwest Jiaotong University.
By 2020, China will have its own high-speed maglev train model and complete the test run, he said.
Du Yanliang — a fellow of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor at the Shenzhen University — agreed with Zhang, saying diversified means of transportation are needed to realize a real “onehour living circle” that lives up to its name, rather than “one hour” on the train and another hour getting to the train station.
This, he said, requires reasonable planning and complementary development of subways and intercity railways.