Chongqing's peninsula is a knot of ridges and river terraces, and the city has grown vertically as much as horizontally: buildings enter from one street at the top and another at the bottom, roads pass over roofs, and districts that look adjacent on a map are separated by eighty metres of rock. The city's response to this has produced public infrastructure that exists nowhere else in quite the same form - escalators and lifts that function as ordinary public transport, used by commuters for a small fare and open to anyone.
The escalators and lifts
The best known is the long escalator at Lianglukou, which links the railway station area at the top of the ridge with the streets below in a single continuous run; it is one of the longest public escalators in Asia and it carries a large commuter traffic every day. Elsewhere there are public lifts built into the hillside, cut through the rock and operating as vertical streets between the levels, including one that has been running since the 1980s and is simply part of the local transport system. Add the cable car over the Yangtze, the monorail that runs through a residential building at Liziba, and the stairways that connect everything, and you have a city where the way you move is part of what you came to see.
Walking the levels
The most rewarding way to experience this is simply to walk between two levels and use whatever the city provides. Pick a ridge and descend: you will pass through stairs, alleys, small shops, public lifts, and lanes that turn out to be the roof of a street below. The old city around Yuzhong and the Shibati and Shancheng areas are the best places to do this, and the views change at every level. Local people do this constantly and without thinking about it, which is precisely the point.
Practical notes
The escalators and lifts charge a small fare, usually paid by transit card or mobile, and operate long hours, though a few close overnight. Some of the hillside lifts are inside residential or commercial buildings and are signed in Chinese only, so a map app with Chinese labels helps. Wear shoes you can climb in, since no amount of escalator building has removed the stairs. In summer the vertical districts are hot and humid, so early morning or evening is more comfortable, and the ascents offer a good excuse to stop for tea or noodles halfway.
