Impression of Xiaogan
Xiaogan was named after Dong Yong, a filial son of the Eastern Han Dynasty, who sold himself to bury his father and moved heaven and earth by performing filial piety. Xiaogan is located in the northeast of Hubei Province, north of the Yangtze River and east of the Han River. It borders Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province. It is about 60 kilometers away from the center of Wuhan and only 30 kilometers away from Wuhan Tianhe International Airport. It enjoys full access to Wuhan's urban resources. It currently governs four districts and counties: Xiaonan District, Yunmeng, Dawu, and Xiaochang, two county-level cities, Yingcheng, and Anlu, as well as one national-level high-tech zone and seven provincial-level development zones, and manages Hanchuan City. The city covers an area of 8,910 square kilometers and has a permanent population of 4.878 million, of which Xiaogan urban area has a population of 550,000 and a permanent population of 900,000.
This is a description of Xiaogan on Baidu. It is named after Dong Yong's filial piety. It is very close to Wuhan, the population of the area under its jurisdiction, etc. Because we have to go through Xiaogan from my hometown to Wuhan, every time the car passes by the outer ring road and never enters the urban area, I went to Xiaogan two days ago and experienced the city of Xiaogan up close.
The urban rail from Wuhan to Xiaogan runs every half an hour. The last train is at nine o'clock in the evening, and the penultimate train is at seven o'clock, with an interval of two hours. After get off work, I couldn't catch the seven o'clock bus, so I bought a second-class seat at nine o'clock, the fare was 20 yuan, and arrived in Xiaogan at nine-thirty. Now comes the point.
The weather in November was windy, rainy, and bitterly cold. After leaving the station, we went straight to the underground taxi point. After arriving at the taxi point, the short lane was crowded with taxis, criss-crossing the taxis. Unless the car in front left first, the car behind would never move. The cars are all empty and there are no drivers inside. The drivers are running around looking for customers. I asked several drivers, but they told me that they don’t use meters at night and charge per head. However, the price they shouted out was double the normal meter price, and they didn’t leave immediately, but only left when the seats were full.
At that time, I was disgusted with such overbearing terms and didn’t want to take a taxi, so I went to the ground to find a bus. Within five minutes, I arrived at the bus stop, but there was no bus. It was windy and rainy. Due to the weather, I had no choice but to return to the taxi stand again. As a result, when I went back, everyone was stunned. There was not a single car in the underground taxi waiting point that was crowded ten minutes ago! At that time, I was shocked by the fast forward and reverse speed of Xiaogan taxis, coming and going like the wind! It feels like I went to a fake place!
On this windy, cold and rainy night, I was really filled with heartache when I encountered such heart-wrenching traffic. Suddenly, my favorable impression of the city Xiaogan dropped a lot. Maybe in my impression, even if Xiaogan is not like Wuhan, at least the traffic should not be too bad. However, it ended up being like the situation in our small county. The buses stopped early and it was difficult to hail a taxi. It felt like the sky was not working and the ground was not responding.
The good news is that I used Didi to find a ride and finally arrived at my destination. After using the coupon, the fare was less than 1 yuan more than the bus.
Perhaps in third- and fourth-tier cities like Xiaogan, the public transportation is not as good as in first-tier or even provincial capitals, and taxis are not standardized, but industries such as express trains and ride-hailing are relatively developed, which can be regarded as filling the gap of transportation. A big shortcoming.
This is also my first impression of the city of Xiaogan.