If the plans are any sign, it's that those super-squeezy-ish AFC ticket barriers will be reality beginning May 17, 2008 in the Beijing Subway. You know, those machines with the arrows-and-crosses (we nearly said "noughts-and-crosses") on top of the whole thing.

The good news: You are no longer condemned to dipping your Super Pass at two or three terminals to start your subterranean journey.

The bad news: There is only one "fat gate" or "super-wide gate". You must dip in twice -- once to enter, once to leave.

By the way: Buy a paper subway ticket in May 2008, and frame that. The paper tickets, a relic of the 1970s (updated with the 2007 Subway system network no less), will enter the dustbin of transport history beginning May 17.

Your last Subway guess game: the color the new tickets will be in. For April, we had Key Lime. (Mac folks, rejoice!) Will Tangerine or Graphite be the May ticket livery?