Expat (or local) in Shunyi? You're in love -- that is, by the subway system. Yes, the guys that made the underground dragon possible for central Beijing are looking at you.

Two lines are planned for Shunyi. One is Subway Line 15, which will clock in at 48 km, start from the Summer Palace, pass through Tsinghua University, and end up via the Jingshun Highway to Shunyi. With 25 stations, it'll reach central Shunyi.

The other line scheduled to give Shunyi all that love would be Subway Line L1 (as it's known), which is pretty much the Airport Line extending all the way into Shunyi from Terminal 3 (you know, the one with the pagodas, fountains and carved-into-stone dragons inside the terminal building). This extension will end up in Niulanshan, Shunyi, and will run to the tune of 24 km.

Construction work on Line 15 may get underway as early as late 2008, while the L1 extension will get groundbreaking work started in late 2009. Was that the price of real estate that just went up?

Shunyi, at the moment, is less-than-adequately linked into central Beijing. The Jingshun Highway is chronically jammed in traffic salad (as the Swiss say -- Verkehrssalat), and no expressway runs straight from central Shunyi into central Beijing -- they all pass close to the center, but never get into Shunyi. Meanwhile, Shunyi is itself expanding with the Shunyi New Town, just north of Baima Road.