Random China news that I'm interested in:

## Public Transportation

--According to this morning's 时代报 (the metro's free newspaper), the city of Shanghai will do an investigation into raising the price of riding the metro because there is simply not enough capacity to handle the flow of riders, especially during the morning and afternoon peak commute periods.  In particular, it cites the Pengpu Xincun station as a stop where it is common for half of the doors on the train to be obstructed and not be able to close in a timely manner.

This is interesting to me because I've often suggested raising the price of a taxi ride because of the unavailability of taxis during peak commute times and on rainy days.

--Also according to the 时代报, the <span class="info" title="wú rén shòu piào">无人售票</span> system will be phased out on 62 bus lines in Shanghai as recently mandated by the transportation authority.  These lines  will go back to the traditional pairing of a bus driver with a human ticket seller.  This move is based on a proposal made by a special committee investigating the issue that buses meet certain size requirements before they be allowed to install the equipment to become 'no person selling tickets' lines.

My guess is that the reasoning behind this derives from the fact that bus loading is faster with a human ticket seller on board than with a seller-less ticketing system.  With a human ticket seller, boarding passengers can get on the bus and sit down before the seller comes around to take their money, so that the bus can take off as soon as everybody files on board.  With pay-as-you-enter buses, passengers often spend time standing in the doorway fumbling with their change or looking for their wallets, causing the bus driver to wait longer before departing.  This is especially true on smaller buses where there is no room for passengers to stand in the bus aisle while they sort out their fare.

## Travel

--According to an e-mail sent to the Oriental-List <q>as of last year, there's a YHA [youth hostel] perched next to the Simatai section of the Wall.</q>  

That's crazy.  Simatai has been the "alternative Wall" for a few years now, and it's already a couple hours outside of the city.  How far will people have to go for the next piece of uncluttered Great Wall?