Nantong in our very own Jiangsu Province will tomorrow enrol in the club of cities in the Province with a metro system and at least one line therein. It shall join five others, including Nanjing of course, in bringing increased mobility to the local population.
Nantong Rail Transit (南通轨道交通), as it is called locally, shall commence operations of Nantong Metro Line 1 tomorrow, 10 November.
Just 1 month shy of 5 years of construction, Nantong’s Metro Line 1 runs through the city’s Tongzhou District, Chongchuan District, Nantong Economic and Technological Development Area and Nantong West Station. The Line’s two termini are at Zhenxing Lu and Pingchao.
With a total of 28 stations and underground for its entirety, the line has a total length of 39.182 kilometres, reports Modern Express.
Operating hours for the Nantong Metro Line 1 are from 06:00 to 22:00 daily, with trains running at a maximum speed of 80 kilometres per hour at a minimum interval of 6 minutes and 30 seconds.
According to the masterplan approved by the National Development and Reform Commission in 2014, Nantong Rail Transit shall in the long-term realise eight lines. Next up, Line 2, scheduled to open next March.
Ronald Paredes is a Venezuelan artist based in Nantong. Talking with The Nanjinger earlier today, Paredes said, “Coincidentally, last night I went for a long drive and I noticed the Metro connects the new area (where I live) with the centre, which means easy and fast access to places we honestly never go because we don’t want to drive there”.
Elsewhere, among the 13 cities of Jiangsu, Nanjing Metro Line 1 was first to enter operation, back in 2005. Suzhou and Wuxi were next in line, opening their first lines in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Lastly, Changzhou and Xuzhou became cities with a metro system in 2019.
The city of Zhenjiang, however, throws a spanner in the logic a bit, being connected to the Nanjing Metro via Line S6 as the first intercity metro line in Jiangsu.
Nantong, located at the estuary of the Yangtze River, facing Shanghai and southern Jiangsu across the River, is the only city with a GDP of over ¥1 trillion north of the Yangtze River in Jiangsu Province.
