Beijing opened two new subway lines on Sunday, delayed from a planned late-June start but just in time to carry passengers banned from their cars as the capital tries to clean up its skies before next month’s Olympics.

Passenger service has yet to start, however, on a third line that will serve the Olympic Green and was the site of an opening ceremony and test ride for the media on Sunday morning.

An official with the Beijing subway operating company said it was not clear when the line would begin regular service.

The three new lines, which cost 22.3 billion yuan ($3.3 billion) to build and are part of massive infrastructure plans to ease transport during the Games, will increase the city’s subway lines to eight and expand their reach by 40 percent to 200 km (125 miles).

Eager crowds rushed through the turnstyles when the airport line formally opened in the afternoon.

Inside subway cars on the Number 10 line, a commuter route, many watched clips of professional basketball games on video screens that are also due to carry live shots of the Olympics.

In addition to shuttling Olympic visitors around town, the new lines will boost transport options for Beijing’s residents, whose rising wealth has triggered a boom in car ownership and severely worsened the city’s chronic smog and traffic jams.

The Beijing authorities, eager to improve air quality before the Games start on August 8, will restrict vehicle use to alternate days for even and odd numbered licence plates starting yesterday.

This will require an additional 4 million people to rely on the public transport system, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

No problems mentioned

While the new lines’ maiden journeys went off with no apparent hitches, Zhou Zhengyu, deputy head of the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications, sidestepped a question at a Thursday news conference about whether there would be enough time to iron out any kinks before the Games kick off.

Nor did he say if there had been any problems with construction that might have delayed the opening, originally due by late June.

Beijing has largely avoided the problems the last Olympic host, Athens, encountered with delayed infrastructure projects, and has won praise from the International Olympic Committee for finishing venue construction work either on time or ahead of schedule.

Reuters

Transport workers in Italy have gone on strike, forcing the cancellation of thousands of bus, tram and subway lines and snarling traffic across the country.

Railway workers have been on a 24-hour strike since 9 p.m. Sunday. Local transport workers went on strike at 8:30 a.m. in Rome and 15 minutes later in Milan.

The railway company says some commuter trains will continue running. Labor unions says service will be guaranteed during the morning and evening rush hours.

The unions called the strikes to put pressure on upcoming contract renewal talks.

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I would just like to say that my thoughts and prayers go out to all who were affected.

A man so fascinated with the city’s public transit system that he’s turned his life into a train wreck is in trouble again.

Darius McCollum, who became a New York sensation when he commandeered a subway at age 15, was arrested Saturday after police found him in a secure area of Manhattan’s Columbus Circle station wearing clothing that resembled a transit worker’s uniform.

The arrest marked the 23rd time the 43-year-old was arrested on charges of pretending to be a transit worker.

Over the years, he has donned MTA uniforms and cheerfully collected fares, cleared trash from tracks, put out underground fires.

But he’s also driven MTA buses and trains, including a time in 1981 when he made headlines as a teenager by taking the controls of a subway full of passengers and piloting it to the World Trade Center.

Hardly just a youthful prank, it was the first of many forbidden rides. By the mid-1990s, frustrated Transit Authority officials posted thousands of wanted posters in trains and stations so riders could report McCollum sightings. But most riders who ran into him found him simply friendly and helpful.

On Saturday, officers of the NYPD’s Transit Queens Task Force spotted McCollum as he entered a secure area. He was wearing a hardhat and the typical blue T-shirt and pants of track workers, and carried a flashlight and gloves with a Transit Authority logo.

Police said he also had “written material containing knowledge of the transit system.” McCollum was charged with criminal impersonation, criminal trespassing and criminal possession of burglar tools.

He was awaiting arraignment on Saturday. Calls to Manhattan Criminal Court went unanswered.

In a statement, the New York Transit Authority thanked the officers who made the arrest, saying, “It is not difficult to imagine how much harm could be caused by someone impersonating a New York City Transit worker.”