4 . The World’s Most Impressive Subways

The Tokyo Metro and Toei lines that compose Tokyo’s massive subway system carry almost 8 million people each day, making it the busiest system in the world. The system is famous for its oshiya—literally, “pusher”—who pushes passengers into crowded subway cars so the doors can. close. And you think your ride is hell.

The Moscow Metro has some of the most beautiful stations in the world. The best of them were built during the Stalinist era and feature beautiful lamps, marble moldings (大理石装饰) and fantastic wall paintings. With more than 7 million riders a day, keeping all that marble clean has got to be a burden.

The Hong Kong MTR has the distinction of being one of the few subway systems in the world that actually turns a profit. It’s privately owned and uses real estate (房地产) development along its tracks to increase income and ridership. It also introduced “Octopus cards” that allow people to not only pay their fares electronically, but buy things at convenience stores, supermarkets, restaurants and even parking meters. It’s estimated that 95% of all adults in Hong Kong own an Octopus card.

Shanghai is the third city in China to build a metro system, and it has become the country’s largest in the 12 years since it opened. Shanghai Metro has 142 miles of track and plans to add another 180 miles within five years. By that point, it would be three times larger than Chicago “L”. The system carries about 2. 18 million people a day.

Londoners call their subway the Underground, even though 55 percent of it lies above ground. No matter when you access the oldest public transportation system in the world, you can call it anything you like. Trains started in 1863 and they’ve been running ever since. Some 3 million people ride each day, every one of them remembering to “Mind the gap”.

Twenty-four trains, nine countries, 13,500 miles.

They are the numbers behind a train journey one man took from Southampton in the UK to eastern China. Roger Tyers, 37, spent a month on board trains and over $2,500 — almost three times the cost of a return flight — to travel to the Chinese port city Ningbo for academic research in May, 2019. It was the climate crisis that drove this socialist to choose this complex route. Tyers told CNN that he felt it necessary to stop flying when UN climate experts warned last year that the world has less than 11 years to avoid disastrous levels of global warming.

Tyers is not the sole person to avoid air travel in response to climate change. Thousands of people worldwide have publicly promised to stop flying, including teenage activist Greta Thunberg, who has inspired youth climate protests around the world. Activist Maja Rosen started the “Flight Free” campaign in Sweden in 2018 with the aim of encouraging 100,000 people not to fly for one year.

Rosen, who stopped flying 12 years ago, says the “Flight Free” campaign helps fight the sense of hopelessness many people feel when it comes to dealing with climate change. “One of the problems is that people feel there’s no point in what you do as an individual. The campaign is about making people aware that if we do this together, we can actually make a huge difference,” she said.

A passenger’s footprint from an individual flight depends on a number of factors, including how far he flies, how full the plane is, and what class he travels in: First class passengers are given more space than economy passengers, meaning they’re responsible for a bigger part of the plane’s emissions. Tyers said that his train journey to China produced almost 90% less emissions than a return flight.

9 . Every day in China, about 200 million children go to school. Many of them take school buses. What should we do to keep these students safe on the road?

On April 5, the State Council (国务院) published new rules about school bus safety. These new rules are stricter than the old ones.

Under the new rules, local governments must make sure that students go to nearby schools or boarding (寄宿的) schools to reduce traffic risks. Also, local governments must help kids in the countryside reach their school buses.

From now on, school buses have a speed limit (限制) of 80 km/h on highways and 60km/h on normal roads. While on the road, other cars must let school buses go first.

The new rules also say that school buses-must never be overloaded (超载的).

There are many other rules as well. A school bus must have more than seven seats. On each bus, there must be at least one adult to keep an eye on the kids. Each school bus must have a fire extinguisher (灭火器), a first aid kit (急救箱) and a GPS.

Last year, a series of school bus accidents happened in China. To stop such accidents, the Central Government decided to strengthen (加强) the rules for school buses.

The. most serious accident happened in Gansu in November, when a nine seat minibus crashed (碰撞). There were 62 children inside, and 21 of them died.

10 . As the coronavirus（冠状病毒）outbreak continues，many Americans are fearful of using public transportation. They are also looking for ways to get exercise without going to a gym. So, it may not be surprising that . the pandemic（疫情）has led to a major increase in bicycle sales.

In the US, bicycles at big stores have sold out. And small bicycle stores cannot keep up with demand for “family-style” bicycles: the low-cost, easy-to-ride models. “The bicycle industry is seeing its biggest sales increase since the oil crisis of the 1970s,” said Jay Townley, an industry expert. He compared the sale of bicycles to the rush to buy products like toilet paper at the start of the pandemic.

The rise in bicycle . sales is not happening just in the US. Italy has created bicycle paths for the growing number of people who want to avoid public transportation. In London, city officials plan to ban cars from some central roads. Bike shop owners in Manila say demand is even stronger than what they see at Christmas time.

Of course, you can only buy a bicycle if you can find one. In the US, the shortages now mean it may take many months to get a bicycle. High demand is not the only reason for the shortage. Many bicycle factories were shut down to stop the spread of COVID-19. The increase in bicycle demand began in March as countries began to close down. In April, the sale of bicycles increased 200 percent in the US.

Joe Minutolo is the co-owner of Bar Harbor Bicycle Shop in Maine. He said he hoped the increased sales meant a change in the way people think about transportation. “People are having a chance to rethink things,” he said, “Maybe we'll all learn something out of this, and something really good will happen.”