China goes underground with £100 billion project for metro networks in 28 cities

After building almost 50,000 miles of motorways and 6,000 miles of high-speed rail lines, China is turning its attention underground, with the world's most extensive metro project.

More than 1 trillion yuan (£100 billion) will be spent on building underground networks in 28 cities, according to Gao Yucai, the head of the urban mass transit committee of China's Communications and Transport Association.

Under these projections, China will build the equivalent of 250 of the London Underground's Circle line by the end of the decade.

Twelve Chinese cities already have underground networks, and Shanghai went from a standing start to having a bigger network than the Tube in 15 years. Creating metros has also become an important badge of progress for lesser cities, such as Taiyuan, Urumqi and Shijiazhuang, many of whose residents are unsure about funnelling billions of pounds of investment underground.

"For local governments, having a metro really polishes the city's image and illustrates the political achievements of its officials, even though all the metro lines currently in operation are losing money," said Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing's Jiaotong University.

"Of course, local governments will have to fund the projects, and they are already heavily in debt. The money will have to mostly come from bank loans."

More than 90 lines have been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission, which oversees the country's planning. Many smaller cities, including Dali, Haikou, Zhuzhou and Luoyang, are in the process of submitting plans.

Transport experts said that even if there appeared little need for widespread metro systems now, China's traffic problems would be a significant issue in the years ahead. "Even the smaller cities are choked up with traffic. Urban rail is a good way to solve that," said Xie Weida, a professor at Tongji university.

"I am sure the local governments are not building subways just to improve their image, but also out of practical concerns. Our original plans never foresaw how many cars there would be on the roads, and there are ever increasing numbers of people moving to the cities."