China’s first overwater highway comes into operation

China’s first overwater highwayr. (Photo by Liu Liangwei / Xinhua)

An overwater highway - Guzhao Highway Link linking Gufu Town and Zhaojun Bridge in Xingshan County, Hubei comes into operation on Aug. 9, 2015. The highway is 109 kilometers long, 4.4 kilometers of which is constructed above the Xiangxi River of the Three Gorge reservoir and Gudongkou second-grade power station reservoir, and that’s why it is called overwater highway.

It’s reported that there are two original schemes on the road design: the first one is low-cost mountain and rock blasting scheme, and the second one is the 440 million overwater highway scheme. Xingshan county is located in Three Gorge area, which is weak in ecological environment. Mountain and rock blasting will save the investment, but its damages to the environment cannot be easily recovered. To preserve the natural environment for the next generations, the local government finally decided to adopt the Water Road scheme.

About 100,000-square-meter mountain areas will be restructured for blasting mountain; whereas only 60,000-square-meter road areas need to be covered in the overwater highway scheme. “The smaller the road areas, the fewer damages to the environment,” Yu Hongshan, the chief of Transportation Bureau in Xingshan County, notes.

Guzhao Highway Link is the expressway linking Xingshan County with Yiba Highway, with designed speed of 60km/h. After its construction, it will only take one and a half hours to drive from Xingshan to Yichang.