China Ranks Third in World's Expressway TrafficThe mileage of China's expressways has so far reached 11,605 km in length, ranking third in the world following the United States and Canada. By 2002, China will complete the project of national expressways running from the east to the west and from the north to the south.According to Vice-minister of Communications Li Juchang, China's speedway developed at the highest speed last year, many freeways were opened to traffic and 2,872 km long freeways were completed. Since China began the construction of expressway in 1988, it has built and opened to traffic a lot of high-quality expressways such as the Beijing-Tanjin-Tanggu, Jinan-Qingdao, Chengdu-Chongqing, Beijing-Shijiazhuang. By the end of 1998, the length of China's expressways had reached 6,258 km, ranking eighth in the world. With the opening to traffic of the Jinan-Tai'an expressway on October 31 last year, the total mileage of China's freeways had exceeded 10, 000 km, jumping to fourth place in the world. Some 49 percent of the planned national trunk highways composed of freeways have been completed and 46 percent are still under construction. |
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