Shanghai residents protest train line construction

With more than a dozen new subway lines being built, shop fronts under renovation and major highways and most of the city's riverfront under construction, it often seems few parts of the city have been left in peace.

The quiet lane near the Xihuan apartments used to be one of those rare places. Far from downtown on the very edges of the city, the narrow road appears to be used mainly by people learning to drive.

A conventional rail line, busy with freight and passenger traffic, already runs along the road, about 100 yards (meters) from the six-story apartment blocks. But before construction on the new line started in February, residents say the noise from the existing line was muffled by a thick greenbelt and tall trees.

Now, instead of greenery, a pile of rubble marks where the high-speed trains, reaching up to 220 miles (350 kilometers) per hour, are due to begin running in 2011 — just 30 yards (meters) from the closest apartments.

Some of the 800 families participating in the protest worry about the noise and potential damage from construction and the trains, others about declining property values. Representatives of the group say they want to receive compensation and move.

A meeting with local officials this week ended in a shouting match, said some who attended.

Last year, protest marches by hundreds of residents in other neighborhoods over the proposed extension of a high-tech, magnetic levitation train line meant to run between the city's two airports appear to have forced the government to put off the project.

Originally officials spoke of also making the Shanghai-Hangzhou rail link a maglev line.

In the end, they settled for a less costly technology that will cut travel time to about 40 minutes from the current 70 minutes.

Despite resistance, the showcase $30 billion yuan ($4.4 billion) project — one of three high-speed rail links intended to drastically cut travel times between Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing — appears to be destined to go ahead: a red signboard posted at the site promises to finish work as quickly as possible.

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