Shanghai
and neighboring Zhejiang
Province are considering a proposal for a magnetic levitation
train to link the two areas, according to Wednesday's
Eastday.com.
At a forum on boosting economic cooperation within the Yangtze
River Delta held last Friday in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang,
experts said they had begun research on the proposal, which calls
for a 170-kilometer maglev line between Hangzhou and Shanghai's
Pudong International Airport.
The line would cut transportation time between the two key delta
cities to only 26 minutes.
On Monday in Beijing, Xu Kuangdi, dean of the Chinese Academy of
Engineering and former mayor of Shanghai, said that
German-developed maglev technology is proposed for the line. It is
less expensive than Japanese technology, which uses superconductor
materials.
The German technology was employed to build Shanghai's existing
maglev line, the first in the world to be used commercially.
Also on Monday, Xu confirmed that the Beijing-Shanghai maglev
project has been canceled because of its high cost and high
risk.
Since 2001, Shanghai Municipality, Zhejiang and Jiangsu
provinces have jointly held annual forums to promote closer
cooperation. The three areas have made advances in resource
sharing, interprovincial tourism, regional environmental
improvement and human resources.
(Shanghai Daily December 2, 2004)