Getting Around Beijing

2009 08-09 – Beijing

Beijing is an easy city to navigate, because it's laid out in a compass-aligned grid system radiating outwards from the Forbidden City.
Moving big distances within the city is easiest by metro, which is cheap at only 2 Yuan per trip (20p), regardless of changes or distance, has station names in pinyin and most lines have on-train announcements in both Chinese and English.
Above ground Beijing is flat, and so bike is perhaps the cheapest and most efficient way of getting about.  Though it's no longer the sea-of-cycles-city it once was, Beijing does have plenty of bikes, most of which use the dedicated narrow lanes that run between the road and pavement along most of the large avenues.  While these lanes provide allocated cycle space away from the traffic, safety is not guaranteed as pedal bikes share with scooters and a wide range of electric bikes that whizz along almost silently.  Even if the green man is showing, it's wise to look both ways when crossing such lanes... twice!

Old-style footbridge over the Imperial Canal, along which you can take a boat trip to the Summer Palace.  Sadly the boats don't have the near silent engines of the electric bikes.