Tonight is the busiest of the year for Nanjing’s Confucius Temple. It’s Lantern Festival, marking the end of Chinese New Year. And so thousands will descend upon Fuzimiao to take in the beauty of red lanterns under a full moon. Time therefore, to close the metro.
It may sound counter intuitive, but shutting metro stations during the peak period for visiting Confucius Temple and other nearby sights, such as Laomendong, is the only way to avoid complete social disorder. For the number of people in these vicinities this evening needs to be seen to be believed.
As such, Nanjing Metro announced yesterday their plans for keeping things running smoothly this Lantern Festival on their official WeChat account.
Sanshan Jie station on Line 1 and Fuzimiao station on Line 3 shall be closed from 17:30 to 21:00 today. Changfu Jie station and Wuding Men station, again on Line 3 shall also be closed, but slightly later, from 18:30-21:00. Trains shall not be stopping at any of these stations during these times.
The general thinking is that people will just wander up the road in one direction or another to the next metro station, whichever is closest to wherever they happen to be.
Thus, enormous crowds flooding into stations such as Fuzimiao when the festivities end are avoided. Instead, the large number of passengers will be more evenly spread over a longer period and more distant stations. It’s a good opportunity to take in some of the other sights, grab a snack and go home at a more leisurely pace.
To facilitate this, Nanjing Metro will increase its passenger capacity for this evening on lines 1, 2, 3 and 4. More trains than usual will be operating, which means an increased frequency of service.
If you are one of the many out and about tonight for the jollifications, bear in mind you may encounter additional passenger flow measures in place at many stations.
Therefore, allow additional time to enter and exit stations such as Sanshan Jie, Zhonghua Men, Daxing Gong, Changfu Jie, Fuzimiao, Wuding Men and Yuhua Men.
