2026-09-07
32 分钟you live in one city and you work in another
and the only thing standing between you and your desk is an hour-long crawl through traffic Until now.
Beijing's newest subway line doesn't stop at the city line.
It keeps rolling straight into Hebei, turning what used to be a commute into something
that feels more like a local errand.
And that changes everything, not just for the people riding it,
but for the very idea of where a city ends and where a region begins.
Live from our studios here in Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly.
Thanks for joining us today.
And for the show, I'm with Yushin and Yushan.
First up.
What if crossing a provincial border became as easy as taking the subway across town?
Across China, the boundaries between neighboring cities are becoming increasingly blurred.
As metropolitan areas expand and more people live in one city while working in another,
cities are looking for new ways to make regional travel faster, cheaper, and more convenient.
And increasingly, the answer is the train.
Beijing is now taking another step in that direction.
Its new Line 22 will connect major areas of eastern Beijing with neighboring Hebei province.
The near 80-kilometer line is expected to significantly shorten the daily commute for people traveling