Special Report: 17th CPC National Congress

    BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Beijing, host city of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, is building more handicapped accessible facilities ahead of the Games, an organizer of the event said on Friday.

    The city is renovating more than 1,000 public facilities a year for easier access of wheelchairs, said Liu Jingmin, vice-mayor of Beijing and executive vice-president of the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee.

    "All Beijing's star-level hotels and more than 40 hospitals are handicapped accessible," he told reporters on the sidelines of the17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

    Beijing's Olympic facilities also include a new terminal building at the Capital International Airport and a more comprehensive subway network, which will extend to the Olympic village and the airport in time for the Beijing Games, said Liu.

    Beijing's No. 5 subway line, running through the heart of the city from north to south, was inaugurated on Oct. 7 to boost public transport and ease road congestion ahead of the Olympics.

    All the new routes employ wheelchair accessible cars.

    The city promised last month it would put more handicapped accessible buses into service and replace all subway cars running on its two downtown routes with new ones in an effort to improve public transport facilities for the Olympics.