ĦĦBEIJING, Jan. 11 -- If you want to get around Shanghai by road - and if you speak Chinese - Shanghai government has just published the Shanghai Road Directory, a detailed traffic and service source guidebook.
If you speak English, you will have to wait until 2009 for the English version, in time for the World Expo in 2010.
The government also plans to design a special Website, both in Chinese and English, to tell visitors the most efficient road route between any two spots of the city.
The Website will provide various service directions to users including the background of typical old houses and their current situation by 2010.
"This book is the city's first of its kind with very detailed regional maps and various service locations," Shen Rende, a senior engineer of the Shanghai Urban Planning Administrative Bureau which supports the mapping project, said yesterday.
Unlike normal city maps sold everywhere at 3 yuan (36 US cents) to 5 yuan, the Shanghai Road Directory, which resembles a yellow-book, has 447 pages and sells at 150 yuan, a high price for a map.
As a major highlight, the book has an index of the locations of some 4,000 residential complexes in enlarged regional maps.
In general, the directory divides the city into 175 detailed regional maps.
Each of them uses different signs and colors to pinpoint address numbers, gas stations, residential complexes, toilets, schools, shopping malls, cinemas, parking lots, parks, hotels and hospitals.
It also clearly pinpoints the entrances of local subway stations, elevated roads and expressways.
Shen said the government will update the directory once a year with the city's fast infrastructure development. But he didn't say if users can turn in their old books for new editions.
Sun Hongchun, director of the Shanghai Institute of Surveying and Mapping, which edits the map, said: "We plan to publicize much of the information on the Website so that each visitor can use it freely and quickly." Enditem
(Source: Shanghai Daily) | 
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