Text/Zhao Yue
Beijing is the city with the longest commute in the country. Many young people who have just started working, faced with high rents in the core urban areas, choose to live in suburbs slightly farther away. For the "North Drift" of the first home purchase, compared with the poor living environment in the urban area and the unit price per square meter is often more than 100,000 yuan, the relatively cheap "Yuanda New" in the suburbs has become their first choice.
A few days ago, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Notice on Promoting the Accelerated Development of Urban (Suburban) Railways in Metropolitan Areas", proposing to solve the problem of commuting between the central urban area of the metropolitan area and surrounding towns by accelerating the development of suburban railways. This is also the first time that the national level has issued a guiding policy for the development of suburban railways.
As of July 2020, there are 4 suburban railway lines in Beijing. Taking the train to work is becoming a new choice for citizens. With the opening of more suburban railways, can the commuting pressure of young people who live in the "sleeping cities" around Beijing be alleviated?
Failed "residential group"
Get up at 5 o'clock, arrive at the company at 7:30 a.m. before the morning rush hour, and then lie down on the table and sleep back to the cage, waiting for the official work at 9 o'clock.
This is the daily schedule of Ji Lin, a post-90s youth who lives in Yanjiao and works in Guomao. Ji Lin, who was forced to buy a house in Yanjiao, loved and hated it here, "the house price is cheap, but it belongs to Hebei, which is completely different from in Beijing."
Today, the house price in Yanjiao is 15,000 to 20,000 yuan / square meter, which is much cheaper than the Chaoyang District, which is often 80,000 or 90,000 per square meter; it is only half of the house price in Tongzhou District on the other side of the Chaobai River. According to statistics, in Yanjiao, there are at least 300,000 "North Drift" people who commute to Beijing every day.
Yanjiao is not alone. In Beijing, "sleeping cities" are spread around the central city. Huilongguan, Tiantongyuan, Yizhuang... Every morning, a mighty commuter flocks from these areas to the city, and at night they return like a tidal wave, day after day.
According to the "National Major Cities Commuting Time Consumption Monitoring Report" released by the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, the average commuting time of China's 36 major cities is 36 minutes, and Beijing, as the capital, takes an average of 47 minutes, ranking first among all cities.
In response to relevant data, Li Xun, former vice president of the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, analyzed that the average commute time of 47 minutes is an average value covering all ages in Beijing, and the commute time of young people who have just worked or worked for several years will be longer, usually not less than one hour.
In addition to the high housing prices and rents in the core area of Beijing, another reason for the formation of the "sleeping city" comes from the failure of planning. Li Xun said that the typical mistake that Beijing has made in urban planning is to pursue a "large group of residences" and fail to grasp the relationship between employment and residence.
Li Guoping, dean of the Capital Development Research Institute of Peking University, also believes that in the past, the planning once emphasized the functional zoning of the city, and the functional area was too large to cause greater problems. For example, Huilongguan and Tiantongyuan have become simple residential areas, and there is no appropriate allocation of employment, resulting in a serious separation of work and housing in the area.
In 1998, Beijing officially ended the welfare housing system that had lasted for more than 40 years, and at the same time approved the establishment of affordable housing and sold it to families with financial difficulties at a lower price. Huilongguan became one of the first planned construction areas for affordable housing.
In 2000, the first batch of affordable housing and commercial housing in Huilongguan was completed. In 2004, Changping District issued a new city plan, positioning Huilongguan as "an urban fringe group, mainly based on affordable housing, providing residential land for population evacuation in the central urban area, planning to increase commercial supporting facilities, and improve urban functions". This laid the groundwork for the Huilongguan to later become "sleeping".
Less than 10 years after its completion, Huilongguan has squeezed in more than 300,000 people. In planning, this is the upper limit of the population it can carry. A similar situation also occurred in TiantongYuan.
Today, Huilongguan and Tiantongyuan, which have a population of more than 800,000 residents, although with the continuous development of rail transit, the commuting pressure has eased, but it is subject to the planning of the "residential group" in that year, and it is still unable to cure the stubborn diseases of long commuting time, peak subway congestion and highway congestion.
"Savior" rail transit
Vigorously developing rail transit is a common practice adopted by major metropolitan areas in the world to alleviate traffic congestion.
Ji Lin said frankly that he, like the commuters living in Yanjiao, hopes for the stars and the moon and expects the Pinggu Line of the Beijing Subway to open in 2024 to shorten the commuting time. The planned Pinggu Line is about 81.2 kilometers long, starting from the East Bridge Station of Beijing CBD in the west, of which the Hebei section of the line is 30 kilometers long and has 5 stations.
However, compared with the opening time that Ji Lin expected, the official information released was more cautious. In December 2020, Beijing authorities said that whether the Pinggu Line could be completed in 2024 could not be determined for the time being, because "the start time of Hebei Province is affected by Sanhe City."
In fact, unlike the more mature rail transit metropolitan areas in the world, there are still many deficiencies in Beijing's urban rail construction system.
Taking Tokyo as an example, the 1,181.9-kilometer, 769-station, criss-crossing train and subway systems are responsible for 40 million trips per day in Tokyo, and the three prefectures of Saitama, Kanagawa, and Chiba are also connected by a train and subway system in line with Tokyo's core urban area.
To some extent, it is the construction of urban rail transit that has effectively guided the transfer of Tokyo's urban functions and further promoted the orderly and efficient operation of the metropolitan area. At present, Tokyo has formed a metropolitan area with more than 30 million people in the surrounding cities, and many commuters work in the city during the day and return to their homes in nearby cities at night.
It is worth noting that the rail transit system in the Tokyo metropolitan area is composed of subways, national railways, private railways, etc., and the subway operating mileage is only about 300 kilometers, mainly serving the urban center; the suburban railway system composed of national railways and private railways has an operating mileage of more than 2,000 kilometers, and the passenger traffic exceeds 70% of the total.
According to relevant data, the Tokyo Suburban Railway guarantees that about 60% of residents live around the track station and can be reached within a 5 to 10 minute walk. At the same time, the suburban railway and the subway are highly integrated, and the transfer is very convenient.
Generally speaking, the subway serves short-distance travel in the central urban area, with a service range of less than 50 kilometers; the suburban railway mostly serves the central urban area of the metropolitan area and the surrounding towns, and the service range is generally 50 kilometers to 100 kilometers.
At present, Beijing has built 4 suburban railways, connecting the core urban areas with Tongzhou, Fangshan, Miyun, Huairou, Yanqing and other suburbs. For example, it takes only 38 minutes to get from Changping to Beijing North Railway Station, which is located within the third ring road of Beijing. However, the above trains only run once a day, and there is only one stop in Changping, which cannot meet the large commuting needs.
More importantly, in China, the railway and the subway have always been independent systems, and the main bodies of investment, construction and operation are not the same. The analysis believes that if the suburban railway still operates according to the model of ordinary railway, it will be difficult to play a role in attracting cross-city commuters.
Satellite City is the ultimate way out
Suburban railways can partially alleviate the problem of long-distance commuting in metropolitan areas, but as long as there is an imbalance between work and housing, commuting pressure seems to be difficult to avoid.
Li Guoping believes that megacities should take the road of multi-center and networked development. For example, in the Tokyo metropolitan area, although the agglomeration problem is more serious, compared with Beijing, the outer areas of Tokyo – such as Kannagawa, Chiba, and Saitama – are better developed and can provide more jobs. More critically, rail transit connects these areas. However, the lack of urban rail systems across administrative regions in China restricts the integration of metropolitan areas to some extent.
Kanagawa Prefecture, an important part of the Tokyo metropolitan area, has established projects such as the Isehara Industrial Park as early as 1969. In 1978, it was clearly proposed to shift from heavy industry to research and development, to "the gathering place of the human brain". Over the years, it has formed a cluster of advantageous industries such as precision machinery and medical treatment, and has absorbed a large number of jobs. Saitama Prefecture, which is also adjacent to Tokyo, was once only an inland agricultural prefecture with a weak sense of existence around Tokyo, but now with strong planning, it has formed advantageous industries such as optical industries and robotics.
Li Guoping suggested that we must plan the city according to the employment center. He said that although central Tokyo is also congested, employment and housing are relatively scattered. Therefore, in the future, in addition to Tongzhou, as the sub-center of the city, Shunyi, Changping, Daxing, Yizhuang, Fangshan and other areas around Beijing also need to greatly improve the level of employment carrying, and follow the changes of employment centers and build residential centers.
In the just-issued Beijing "14th Five-Year Plan" proposal, it is also mentioned that "in Shunyi, Daxing, Yizhuang, Changping, Fangshan and other new cities, to build an internationally competitive advanced intelligent manufacturing industrial cluster", "to promote the construction of Zhongguancun Science City, Huairou Science City, Future Science City, Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone and Shunyi Innovation Industry Cluster Demonstration Zone".
Among them, Huairou Science City and Shunyi Innovation Industry Cluster Demonstration Zone are located in the far suburbs of Beijing, and the scope of Zhongguancun Science City, which was originally located in the urban area, is also constantly moving out. The analysis believes that if the plan to build a complete industry in these new cities is successful, it will absorb a large number of jobs, and the young people living here will be able to find jobs at their doorstep.
The final solution of Yanjiao's "Sleeping City", in addition to relying on rail transit, is more important than the development of Tongzhou.
In Li Guoping's view, if the sub-center and business district of Tongzhou city can intercept 60% to 70% of the employed people living in Yanjiao, the congestion problem will be significantly alleviated. Because, compared with the central urban area, Tongzhou and Yanjiao are much closer, which not only shortens the commuting time of office workers, but also indirectly solves the problem of overcrowding in the central urban area of Beijing.
Beijing's "14th Five-Year Plan" also mentioned that it is necessary to grasp the implementation of the coordinated development plan between Tongzhou District and the three northern counties to promote integrated development. Guide suitable industries to extend to the three northern counties and open up road blockages.
However, to form a multi-center networked metropolitan area, it is still difficult for Beijing. Relative to the industrial development trend in the northerner region, the development of the southern suburban counties of Beijing still leaves a lot of room.