Mega cross-sea passage in Greater Bay Area opens to traffic

GUANGZHOU, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Huangmaohai Link, a cross-sea passage in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), opened to traffic on Wednesday.

The project's construction started in June 2020 and serves as another major cross-sea passage following the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao bridge and the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link in the GBA.

The project is designed as a six-lane expressway with a speed limit of 100 kilometers per hour. It starts in Pingsha Town in the city of Zhuhai and ends in Doushan Town in the city of Taishan, spanning approximately 31 kilometers.

The link's cross-sea section stretches about 14 kilometers and includes two main bridges.

As the western extension of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, the project closely connects the cities of Jiangmen and Zhuhai and Macao and Hong Kong administrative regions.

"During the design and routing phase, the project proactively avoided ecologically sensitive areas," said Li Qiang, deputy director of the project's management center.

"During construction, ecological monitoring and ecological response assessments were conducted for bird species, effectively protecting the habitats of egrets and other birds," Li added.

The opening of the passage has cut the travel time from Zhuhai to Jiangmen from over an hour to about 30 minutes.

"The Huangmaohai project will boost the GBA's connectivity and economic integration, and is crucial for Guangdong's regional development initiatives and building the GBA into a world-class transportation hub," said Lin Feiming, head of the Guangdong provincial department of transport.

Spanning 56,000 square km, with a total economic output of over 14 trillion yuan (around 1.95 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2023, the GBA encompasses the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, along with nine cities in south China's Guangdong Province.