More than 70 percent of the tap water in Beijing’s main urban areas comes from the Yangtze River, thanks to a huge water diversion project that was designed to ease water shortages in the north.

Beijing has received 2.28 billion cubic meters of Yangtze water since the south-to-north water diversion project began pumping water into the city in December 2014, Beijing Waterworks Group said in a report Saturday.

It said the project had increased Beijing’s water supply capacity to 3.72 million cubic meters a day, ending the water shortage the capital experienced every every summer.

Before Yangtze water diverted to Beijing, the city’s daily supply capacity was 3.2 million cubic meters at most and water sources, mainly from underground, were susceptible to calcium and magnesium salts.

At least 11 million people in Beijing have benefited from the water diversion project so far, according to Beijing Waterworks Group.

“Residents in high-rise apartment buildings used to suffer water crunches in summer. On some of the worst days, there was no water for cooking or washing,” said Fang Yajun, chief of the water authority in Tongzhou District, east Beijing.

“Their problems will soon be solved, with a new waterworks that will open this summer to supply 200,000 cubic meters of water daily,” he said.

The new waterworks in Tongzhou District, the city’s “subsidiary administrative center,” is fed by Yangtze water and will double Tongzhou’s daily supply capacity, said Fang.

Among the 2.28 billion cubic meters of Yangtze water pumped to Beijing since the end of 2014, about 1.58 billion cubic meters has gone to water supply companies. The rest is stored in reservoirs or used as groundwater, river and lake supplies.

Chinese railcar-maker CRRC unveiles a new product called Autonomous Rail Transit (ART) in Zhuzhou, Hunan province, June 2, 2017. [Photo: Thepaper.cn]

Chinese railcar-maker CRRC on Jun. 2 unveiled a new product called Autonomous Rail Transit (ART) in Zhuzhou, Hunan province, and the bus-rail combo rapid transit system is expected to speed up city’s public transportation.

According to CRRC, ART uses rubber wheels on a plastic core instead of steel wheels. It’s also equipped with the company’s copyrighted technology to automatically guide the vehicles. It carries the advantages of both rail and bus transit systems and is agile and non-polluting, Thepaper.cn reported.

ART is much cheaper than ordinary subway, which cost about 400-700 million RMB per kilometer in China. And compared with electric streetcars, which cost 150-200 million RMB per Kilometer, ART is only about one-fifth the investment.

CRRC began designing the ART system in 2013. The first ART car is 31 meters in length, with a maximum passenger load of 307 people or 48 tons. Its top speed is 70 kilometers per hour, and it can travel 25 kilometers in distance after 10 minutes of charging.

The world’s first ART line will be launched in Zhuzhou, with a total length of 6.5 kilometers. Upon completion, it will be able to dock with the city’s mid-low speed maglev train.