transport
Leading up to the Beijing Games, we’ll continue to update this page as the
Olympic Transportation Network develops.
More information
will be released in the coming months regarding the Official Transportation system
during the Olympic Games. As was offered during other Olympic Games, public transportation
is provided to event ticket holders for free (IF you carry your Olympic
ticket with you and it must be a ticket for the event that you are attending
THAT day).
The Beijing transportation system is already quite extensive and is being expanded on a daily basis. The Subway and the City Rail run every 3 to 5 minutes and are the fastest method of public transportation available. Buses are the cheapest way to get around the city, but currently with routes written in Chinese only, it’s a bit difficult to navigate the city this way. Every Olympic Games create their own specific Olympic Bus Routes leading directly to event venues. Count on these buses to have information written in English.
Everyone’s heard the line how Beijing accepts 1,000 new drivers to its roads every day. It sounds pretty unbelievable but in a city with over 15 million inhabitants, it becomes more realistic to believe once you've spent a couple minutes here. DO NOT even think about renting a car. Even if it weren't illegal, you wouldn't want to take it on.
That being said, you should feel at ease knowing that there are more than 60,000 taxis in Beijing. Every driver maneuvers the city’s streets with a certain sense of urgency and aggressiveness. The best tip is to take the taxi and skip the novelty of taking a rickshaw. The latter may amount to a hefty amount that you never agreed to and you’ll have difficulty negotiating what you think is a fair price (after the fact).
Also, you want to hail a taxi from the street and not in front of a hotel for the best rates and for a more honest taxi driver! Often times, the taxis in front of the hotels will attempt to charge you for their waiting time. Please keep this in mind as well: be sure to watch the driver start the meter, avoid the black taxis, find one that is from one of the official companies and do not get into a taxi with someone who approaches you on the street or from their taxi. Someone at your hotel will be able to write your destination down for you in Mandarin in case your driver doesn’t understand where you’d like to go.
The minumum price for a single taxi ride is 10 YUAN/RMB (about $1.50 U.S.). If your journey is over 3 km, the taxi ride is 2 yuan per kilometer. The fare for a journey on a public bus is 1 RMB in the city and 2 RMB in the suburbs. Beijing Subway fares vary depending on which line you take. A single trip on Line Batong is 2 RMB, a single trip on Line 1, Line 2 and the City Rail Line #13 are 3 RMB each. The transfer set ticket between Line 13 and any city line is 5 RMB; the transfer set ticket between Line Batong and any city line is 4 RMB.
By the Olympics in August, Beijing 2008 will have created five new metro lines, with two of them leading to the Olympic Green where a few event venues are located. Currently Beijing has 2 metro lines; this number will triple by the 2008 Games. Out of the 5 new routes, two of them: the Olympic Line #10 and the North/South Line #5 will serve the Beijing Olympic Green to make accessing the venues simple and convenient without all of the hassle above ground on the street!
