Summary：China's subway networks are set to enter a period of rapid expansion, with around 2 trillion yuan ($319.8 billion) being poured into constructing or expanding subways in 34 cities in the next half decade.

China's subway networks are set to enter a period of rapid expansion, with around 2 trillion yuan ($319.8 billion) being poured into constructing or expanding subways in 34 cities in the next half decade.

Liu Heming, a director from the urban construction department within the Ministry of Housing and Urban- Rural Development was quoted in the Oriental Morning Post as saying that this would be the fastest pace of urban rail development that China has ever seen, while Wang Mengshu, a vice general engineer with the China Railway Tunnel Group Co, told the Global Times that these projects would be finished in roughly three to five years, but overseas they tended to take seven to 10 years.

However, not everyone is convinced that this kind of speed is a good thing. The country has been wracked with accidents involving collapsed land caused by subway construction, even in top tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The fact that authorities are pushing to have the projects completed quickly is making the problem even worse.

In Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, about 20 land collapse accidents happened this summer, partly because of subway construction, sources inside subway construction companies told news magazine Caijing.