By Zhiyuan Jiang
I've been longing to report some exciting
events from my hown
city of Shanghai, but for years, the news always seemed to be
less satisfatory, with drastic decline of both trolley-bus fleet
and the number of trolley routes in this world's earliest and
once the third largest trolley system .
That is why I can't conceal my great excitement
this morning
when I learned a major trolley-bus route extension has been accomplished
in my beloved place.
The extension which affects the existing
trolley-bus route 21
is 6.5 km and requires suspension of new one way overhead by
as much as 13 km . The extension starts from the existing terminal
of Rt. 21 at Lu'xun Park, continues northward and then eventually
westward to serve the new residentail communities of Liang'cheng
Estate at city's northern outskirts. Although Liang'cheng Estate
is already served by a number of diesel bus route, the residents
of the community will now be able to enjoy high quality electirc
service which not only take them directly to Shanghai's third
busiest shopping street. but also a metro station of Shanghai
Metrol Line 3 (the Pearl Line) which is due to open at the end
of this year (I will have a seperate report on Pearl Line when
it is open).
Route 21, like Route 20 which I have fequenly
mentioned before,
is also one of the earliest transit routes in Shanghai, its prdecessor
is a tram line. It is unclear when route 21 becomes a trolley-bus
route, but route 21 is always known to link 2 of the most popular
parks in Shanghai--Dr. Sun Yat San Park, and Lu'xun Park, the
primary route seving the third busiest shopping street of Szechuan
Road, North, and one of the most important and longest corridor
trolley routes.
In 1990, a road construction along Yu'yuan
Road forced both routes
20, 21 to temporarily cut back to Jing'an Temple from their common
destination at Dr. Sun Yat San Park, the construction did not
finish when I left Shanghai, but later I learned that when it
was finally done, only route 20 were made back to Dr. Sun Yat
San Park, and route 21 was permanently cut back to Jing'an Temple,
which is why you see route 21 as from Jing'an Temple to Lu'xun
Park only today. The extension of today obviously affects the
other end of the route.
Although a major break through has been
accomplished, roads leading
out northward from Lu'xun Park is in fact not a virgin land of
any trolley-bus. Years ago route 9 has operated here, too and
eventually going opposite direction to today's extension to east
for Jiang'wan Pentagon Square. Route 9 was dieseaselized in
1993 during the construction of a viaduct with the replacement
route 139.
It is not clear yet the exact course of
this extension, I will
keep a watchful eyes on the event when more information becomes
availablel. But for now:
Route 21 Jingan Temple -- Liangcheng Estate
11 NO 2000