Surviving Public Transportation - The Beijing Edition

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In most large cities, we typically forego the often expensive car rental in lieu of public transportation. While this usually requires a bit more planning in hotels and events, it is also a great way to see the city and people.

It was at a Beijing subway station during rush hour that I figured out if you are heading against the crowd, you are probably going the wrong way. There are no shortcuts. During rush hour, the well labeled subway stations are at their finest, shuttling hundreds of people on and off each train within 10 seconds. Passengers are very civilized, efficient, and know exactly where to go - so we just follow the crowd. If a large percentage of the exiting passengers heads to one of the exits, then there is probably either an escalator - an 'excavator', as Alex calls it - or a better exit location in that direction.

Regardless of the large crowds, every subway entrance also features semi-airport style security screening with metal detectors and baggage x-ray. This helped us feel even safer, as compared to the subways in other major cities where some rather 'interesting' people tend to hang out. But much of the time it seemed they didn't really care if the metal detector beeped, and a few times they weren't even watching the x-ray. More helpful was the large number of security guards stationed on little risers throughout the tunnels, usually with a fire extinguisher by their feet (guess it's cheaper than sprinklers?). They would appear to be so serious and stiff, but would break down and smile when Alex walked by.

On the platform, we would have to line up very carefully to ensure that we could get on the next train without being separated. A helpful guard told us that the front and back of the train was usually easier since the doors were harder to access behind the platform entrance. What really helped the most was a set of 3 arrows on the ground at the point where each door stops. The two side arrows pointed diagonally toward the door, and the center arrow pointed away from the door. It was a simple way of saying 'let the people off, then squeeze in the sides'. And it worked. They also use a loud bell - like an old school bell - to signal that the doors were closing, then the doors would close with enough force to discourage anyone from stopping them. In busier stations, there would also be security guards enforcing the bell by actually pulling people off of the car just before the doors chopped off something important.

Once on the train, people jostled around while we just tried to get all three kids into a safe pocket between us or against a barrier. There are very few seats on the subway (they just take up room, really), but about 3/4 of the time, 2 or 3 of the sitters would notice the kids and immediately clear out, motioning for us to sit down. Somehow this even happened when it seemed that if anyone moved, the whole universe would be disrupted. Maybe the reason this was so surprising was that we just came from Berlin, where claims were made and property deeds likely held on seats. Berliners gave us the annoyed "Great, more overpopulation" look and continued their sittage.

When the time came for us to exit, an announcement was made in Chinese and English to begin moving to the doors. This was just as hard as entering the train sometimes, but we could usually use the kids as wedges between other passengers. Jessica and I have a rule in these cases where if we were to be separated (such as if one of us could not get on or off), then we would always meet at the station where we separated. The goal of this approach is to keep one of us stationary (off the train), and allow the other one to double back and find the stationary person at a known location (i.e., *not* a station that we have never been to). So far, we've never had to use this fall-back, but it makes us both feel like we've got a contingency plan.

In summary, rush hour subway traffic was really not as bad as our experience in Rome, where we actually had to split up and elbow fight in order to just get on the same train.

Our experience on a Beijing metro bus is very limited. In fact, we only rode a commuter bus to and from Hairou on the way to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It was really uneventful, but it was here that we learned to never step in front of a bus, even it if it supposed to be stopped. I'm not sure if we heard the driver yelling or honking more, but they both worked together in an unusual symphony to both part the traffic and keep people seated on his bus. It was really entertaining for me. This commuter bus is probably not a fair example of a typical metro bus, but it was basically an old coach-style bus. It was not very clean and smelled like smoke. I think someone might have even lit up while we were riding.

Like on the subways, bus stops were clearly noted on the overhead marque and as a banner on the on-board TVs showing CCTV clips. In addition, there were audio recordings in both Chinese and English for each stop. It was easy to track where we were on the route map, which was customized to the specific bus (I've actually never seen this before). At one point on the way back to Beijing, the driver decided that the bus was full and restricted stops to exiting passengers only, yelling at the poor waiting passengers at the bus stop. On inner city buses, they obviously allow a lot more people to stand and hang on, but it is worth noting that buses don't have to stop if they're full.

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