Mayor of London Boris Johnson, who is on a high-profile visit in Beijing this week, took a ride on the capital’s notoriously crowded subway on Tuesday and said he found it even more “crowded” than the Tube in London。

倫敦市長鮑里斯·約翰遜本周訪問北京備受關(guān)注，周二他體驗了以擁擠著稱的北京地鐵。他稱北京地鐵甚至比倫敦的地鐵更加“擁擠”。

“It was not the peak hour, yet the traffic was comparable to the rush hour in London,” he said。

他說：“現(xiàn)在并不是交通高峰時段。但地鐵上的乘客人數(shù)堪比倫敦高峰時段的乘客人數(shù)。”

Johnson and his crew travelled on Beijing’s No 1 line from Xidan to Gongzhufen in the afternoon, a total of five stops, according to Chinese media reports. He was lucky enough to have secured a seat, after being hailed by curious travellers。

據(jù)中國媒體報道，約翰遜及其隨同人員于周二下午乘坐了北京地鐵1號線，從西單站到公主墳站共乘坐了五站。在好奇的乘客們歡呼致敬之下，他很幸運地占到了一個座位。

Yet Johnson admitted that he was impressed by the “orderliness” and “cheap cost” of the subway, where riders are charged a flat fare of 2 yuan。

盡管擁擠，約翰遜還是稱他深感北京地鐵“秩序井然”、“價格便宜”，乘客們只需支付統(tǒng)一的兩元錢票價。

“I’ve long heard that you take public transportation to work, and you get my full respect,” wrote a blogger。

一位網(wǎng)友在博客上說，“久聞倫敦市長總是乘坐公共交通工具上下班，我對他充滿敬意。”

A keen cyclist himself, Johnson pointed out in a speech he gave earlier this week in Beijing that Chinese visitors were attracted to London because of multiculturalism, fine universities and “beautiful communist bicycles”。

作為一個自行車愛好者，約翰遜曾在本周日前一次演講中指出，中國游客被倫敦吸引，正是因為倫敦的文化多元性、知名學府和“漂亮的社區(qū)自行車”。