(The dotted lines are under construction)

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On Monday (Dec 26), part of Guang-zhou Metro's Line 3 and 4 will come into service, bringing an added 60 kilometers of subway into operation.

Guangzhou will have a total length of 255 kilometers of subway in operation by 2010 with a subway station for every 500 meters in downtown areas, according to Lu Guanglin, general manager of the Guangzhou Metro.

By then, the subway will become the first choice for travel within the city, because a subway train will be able to carry passengers across the city within one hour, Lu said.

In June 2005, the total length of Guangzhou's subway that was under construction was 114.57 kilometers, six times that of 2001. The city government will link the city center and satellite districts, each of which will have a population of more than 500,000, with the subway. The travel time between Guangzhou and the cities of Foshan and Dongguan will be shortened to less than an hour.

According to Lu, 600,000 people, or 10 percent of the Guangzhou population, use subway, while 5.5 million use other forms of public transport each day. But by 2010, half of Guangzhou people will travel underground, he said.

Line 3 will be China's fastest subway line, with a top speed of 120 kilometers per hour. So far, China's maximum subway speed is 80 kilometers per hour.

Line 4 will see China's largest subway train carriages. Each carriage will hold as many as 240 passengers. The line will travel both underground and above ground, with some sections more than 20 meters above the surface. The line will provide passengers with more comfortable travel through steadier and less noisy trains, according to Liu Zhicheng, an engineer involved in building Line 4.

Editor: Donald