Experiencing China's ongoing environmental improvements
Improved public transport has made moving around Tianjin much easier. Line 9 is a combination of metro and light rail. It runs a considerable distance almost to the mouth of the Haihe River where vast port facilities service some of the world’s largest ocean-going container ships. It is within the Binhai New Area.
However, with that line mostly running above ground, the 40-minute journey is an opportunity to see so much change. Evidence is there of former industrial landscapes that mostly drove Tianjin’s economy. Today older inefficient steel and chemical works are regularly closing with the locations restored into parkland or zones of modern residential or commercial structures. They rise alongside remnants of former factory workers’ six-floor walk-up residential buildings. Elevated high-speed railway lines now run alongside older, conventional tracks still serving dock facilities and the remaining industrial units.
