More on Shanghai transportation

I refer to the report in your paper titled Shanghai subway network a good example (The Jakarta Post, Aug. 24), in which it is reported, inter alia, that Shanghai, with a population of 13 million, has 36 subway lines, and also that the construction of the Maglev train was fueled by a political rivalry between China and Taiwan.

Actually, Shanghai now has two subway lines (not 36 lines), running respectively between the Zhangjiang high-tech park station and the ZhongShan park station, and another between the Shanghai Railway Station and the XinZhuang station.

In addition to that there are two monorails operating between ShiLong Road and Hoggou, and another between Minghang and XinZhuang.

There is another main river in Shanghai besides the Huangpu River, that being Suzhou He or the Suzhou River. It should be noted that the Suzhou River is not in Suzhou city. In fact, the Suzhou River was made famous in the early days by the song By the Suzhou River.

It is also quite naive to say the construction of the Maglev was fueled by political rivalry between China and Taiwan. Taiwan is no rival in this. Rather, the construction of modern trains has been an obsession for China since the late 19th century, toward modernization and industrialization. The present Maglev train, built with German technology, is very much "a prototype" to be expanded further, linking Shanghai with other cities in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, as well as with Beijing

Also Shanghai now has a population of 20 million (not 13 million), including migrant workers with or without residence permits.

Jakarta, indeed, has a lot to learn from Shanghai in terms of transportation. But first of all, to encourage more white-collar workers to use public transportation in Jakarta so as to ease traffic jams, all public transportation should be cleansed of all criminals, no matter how petty they may be.

SIA KA-MOU Jakarta

Note: Thank you for your corrections.

--Editor