This Day, That Year

Item from Jan 20, 1997, in China Daily: Huang Liyun, a worker from Jiangsu province, waits at Beijing’s Yongdingmen Long-Distance Bus Station yesterday for the bus that will take her home for Spring Festival. …

The bulk of the estimated 1.7 billion holiday trips will be made by bus, which is convenient, fast and cheaper than traveling by train or plane.

The 2017 Spring Festival travel rush started on Jan 13 and will end on Feb 21. A total of 2.98 billion trips are expected to be made nationwide during this period, according to an official forecast.

Nearly 85 percent of the trips will be made by road, 12 percent by rail, 2 percent by air and 1.4 percent by water, according to a projection released by the government two weeks ago.

The total volume of passengers taking trains and airplanes will increase by about 10 percent year-onyear, the projection said.

Bullet trains have become a popular choice. ShanghaiHangzhou, ShenzhenGuangzhou, Chongqing Cheng du and BeijingShijiazhuang are among the most popular routes.

Last month, China Railway Corp put into operation one of the world’s longest high-speed railway lines, linking the country’s prosperous eastern coast to the lessdeveloped southwest.

The 2,260-kilometer Shanghai-Kunming line traverses the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guizhou and Yunnan and cuts travel time from 34 hours to 12.

The operation is also expected to boost tourism in the regions linked by the line.