That dream dates back to 1965, when Shenyang's subway plan received approval and began construction, before the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), put an end to it.

Also in 1965, on July 1, the groundbreaking ceremony for Beijing's subway system was held. The ceremony should have been held in 1961, but was postponed due to the "three difficult years" from 1958 to 1961.

"Just over 30 years ago, people would have been happy just to visit a subway station," said Xu Lisen, born in Beijing.

Cai's wife, Han Chen, is from Shanghai, where the subway dream also took over 30 years to come true on April 10, 1995, when subway Line 1 was put into operation. Han met Cai while he was in Shanghai on business, shortly after subway Line 2 went into operation in September 1999.

Shanghai subway line 2 runs through Huangpu River and connects the old city with the new, although on the original plan its route was different. In April 1990, after the State Council made a decision to develop the Pudong area of the city, the route of Line 2 was altered to run to it through the river. Line 2 has played an important role in changing Pudong, a name that few people knew, into an area of rising wealth. On December 24, 2004, the daily volume of passengers on the line reached 600,000.

"Subway Line 1 connects two railway stations in Shanghai and can take you under the old city area, while Line 2, which leads to Pudong, shows you the new face of Shanghai," said Wang Wei, a journalist from the local Xinmin Weekly.

China has realized that subways serve not only to relieve road congestion but also operate as the blood vessels of a city, changing its structure and helping districts to develop.

Planned and rational

Following in the footsteps of Beijing and Shanghai, many cities across China developed subway construction plans. However, in 1995, China's State Council issued a document, which suspended subway projects in all cities except for those already under construction in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

The main reason for this was to ensure subway construction followed a carefully planned and rational path. The Central Government was concerned that local governments might launch into subway construction programs blindly, in search of political accolades, with no thought of profitability.

In October 2002, the State Council paved the way for change when it decided to conduct detailed research on domestic subway construction.

In 2003, the State Council promulgated a document on the management of the construction of urban mass transit. The document regulated that cities planning to build subways should at least meet four basic conditions: fiscal revenue should be above 10 billion yuan ($1.45 billion), gross domestic production should be above 100 billion yuan ($14.5 billion), the urban population should be over 3 million, and the one-way passenger flow of the planned route should be over 30,000 at peak hours.

On June 6, 2005, the National Development and Reform Commission gave permission for a subway line in Hangzhou, a picturesque tourist city in Zhejiang Province.