Beijing Buses

The bus system provides a flexible and cheap, albeit somewhat slow, way of getting around Beijing. The buses are so frequent that the wait is seldom more than 2 minutes, even for a specific bus, such as No. 22 which takes us from the BNU campus downtown to Tiananmen Square. The picture shows a string of buses at the BNU east gate, including two of the large, double-length No. 22s. And this evening when we took the bus down to the subway station there were four No. 47s that came almost together, although two were two crowded to get on.


String of Buses

The system is very extensive and quite intimidating. Here is a picture of the map of the system going slightly beyond the third ring road. The map is really essential for finding out the route you need, but is hard to find to buy (at least for us). Rarely, it can be found at a bus stop like this one, but advertisements are more common. The one I took a picture of here has already disappeared.


Bus Map

At the bus stop there are posters for each bus that stops there, showing the terminuses, the time of running, the stops (in Chinese of course), and (usually!) the stop you are at. So if you can identify where you are going you can choose the right bus and count the stops. The easiest strategy is to take a bus with number less than 200, for which the fare is a flat 1 yuan - then you don't have to tell the conductor where you are going!


Planning the Trip

Often the buses are very crowded, although people are often polite, and offer their seats to older passangers, sometimes including us!


Standing Room Only!