Hangzhou Bay to be Spanned Over with the Longest Cross-sea Bridge in China

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, January 04, 2002

Hangzhou Bay to be Spanned Over with the Longest Cross-sea Bridge in China

Over the Hangzhou Bay which is renowned in the world for its tidal waves into the Qiantang River a cross-sea bridge, so far the longest of its kind in China will soon be put underway for construction. As reporters learned from the Ningbo municipal government: the State Council has recently approved the project for the construction of the bridge. The land distance between Shanghai and Hangzhou, the two cities bearing the similarity in humane culture and profound relationship, will be shortened for almost 120 kilometers after its completion.

The grand bridge over the Hangzhou Bay has undergone an antecedent preparation of eight years with a total of 53 symposiums organized for discussing on various topics and subjects and 55 meetings for assessment. Present at the symposiums and meetings were more than 500 experts and scholars of whom over 20 were academicians from the Chinese Academies of Engineering and Sciences.

As learned the grand bridge over the Hangzhou Bay extends some 33 kilometers, being the longest cross-sea bridge in China. The bridge is just a free passageway along the road extending from Tongli of Heilongjiang to Sanya in Hainan Province, one of the ��Five Longitudinal and Seven Latitudinal�� arterial ways as planned by the Ministry of Transportation and Communication to be constructed in China. The bridge stretches towards the sea from the Zhengjiadai of Zapu of Zhejiang, spanning over the northern waterway and the southern by-waterway of the Hangzhou Bay to join the embankment of Shilitang at Cixi of Ningbo City. The designing type of the bridge as promoted by the engineering department is to be a derrick bridge of reinforced concrete suspended with double arrays of chains and pylons. The investment for the project is RMB 8 billion-yuan, the designing standard being a freeway-like bridge of dual ways with six alleys and the designed speed being 100 kilometers per hour.

The completion of the bridge will greatly shorten the distance between Shanghai and Hangzhou, thereby relieving the traffic pressures along the expressway from Shanghai to Hangzhou and Ningbo. And it is to form by and by a ��two-hour-drive ring�� round the areas of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai with Shanghai as its transportation hinge and further to make Shanghai a center in the extra-large international chains of cities. The construction of the Hangzhou Bay Bridge will help raise the status of Ningbo among clusters of cities in the area of the Yangtze River Delta as relevant experts hold. Ningbo is going to be a rear base to supply Shanghai with raw materials, a base of energy industry, ocean shipping and for the development of maritime economy. This will also bring about the development of foreign trade, transportation service and garment industries, thereby becoming an important harbor, transportation hub and an industrial city.

Reporters also learned from the project headquarters that the initial assessment of the feasibility study of the bridge striding over the Hangzhou Bay has already been brought to finish with the initial design and preparation of fieldwork put under operation in an orderly way. The ��initial prospect and checkup�� has been finished too, while the trial pile driving is being carried out right at the moment.

By PD Online Staff Han Rongliang