I was coming back from Shanghai on Tuesday night and fighting the crowds at the Nanjing Railway Station (the old one) and was perplexed to see this metro map on display. At the moment we have two lines – line 1 and line 2. However, recently the shorter branch of line 1 has been terminated (for works I believe) and the other longer section south has been cut short too.
And on top of that, line 3 is supposed to be coming soon – aren’t we all fed up of the roadworks which have seen Taiping Lu (Nan and Bei) dug up for over 2 years.
So you can imagine my surprise when I see a metro map at the railway station which shows ALL the lines, present and future. We all know why – the Olympics is coming in August and the world will be watching Nanjing.
However it’s a bit misleading for tourists isn’t it. Lines, 1, 2, 3, 8 and 10 are all marked on the map and they are going to assume they exist – in reality not just in the imagination of the city planners’ minds.
So this Nanjing fluffing out its chest ‘Look at how grown up we are with all our metro lines – well OK, they’re not ready yet, but come back in 3 years time and they might be’.