Building of Guangzhou Second Subway in Full SwingChinese workers have been working on 33 civil engineering projects for the second subway in Guangzhou, one of China's major southern gates to the outside world.Sources from Guangzhou Subway Corporation said the major structure of the five stops have been finished thus far, and bidding for required electro-mechanical equipment has also been closed. Lu Guanglin, general manager of Guangzhou Subway Corporation, said only 489 households were relocated and 56,000 square meters of buildings were demolished for the construction of the second subway. Some 20,000 households were relocated and 1.1 million square meters of buildings demolished when the first subway was built. According to Lu, public bidding has been carried out extensively in the construction of the second subway, which has helped to optimize the design of the subway, enormously reducing the cost of the subway. For instance, civil engineering construction contracts are worth 2.833 billion yuan (about 341 million U.S. dollars), down by 20.76 percent from the budgetary estimate of the project, while contracts for 50 kinds of electro-mechanical equipment needed in the subway are worth 1.288 billion yuan (about 155 million U.S. dollars), down by 29.3 percent from the budgetary estimate. The second subway is part of the cross-shaped subway project in Guangzhou, also capital of Guangdong Province. It will have a total length of 26 kilometers and 22 stops. The entire second subway will cost 1.8 billion yuan (217 million U.S. dollars). Part of the second subway, the section from the railway station to the western Jiangnan, will be completed and put into service in 2002. The section from Sanyuanli to Bazhou will be ready for service by late 2003, said Lu. The first subway, with a length of 18.48 kilometers and extending from west to east, has been in operation since June 1999. A third subway, with a length of 13 kilometers and nine stops, is also proposed. |
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