Archive for the 'bridge' Category

The go-ahead has been given for the building of a bridge that will link Hong Kong, Macao and the western Chinese province of Guangdong. Price will be around the US$7.7 billion which will make it one of the world’s most expensive and ambitious infrastructure projects

The 29.6km bridge, first proposed 25 years ago (the writer remembers putting together a feature on it for the Hong Kong Standard) will connect Hong Kong on the eastern side of the Pearl River with Macao and Zhuhai in the west to create a regional economic hub.

It is expected to cut travel time between Zhuhai, in Guangdong, and Hong Kong from about three hours to 20 minutes.

The idea is to bring development to the western side of the Pearl River which, oddly enough, has almost been ignored in the boom times.

It makes lot of sense. Hong Kong remains one of the world’s most vibrant ports and the areas of Guangdong to its north are home to the factories behind much of China’s recent economic boom. Space is running out if Hong Kong is to hang on to any claim for being a green city (which, by the way, it is.)

So the western shore of the Pearl River is, to use the wrong cliche, the last frontier. But it is true it has remained underdeveloped due to its difficult geographical access.

The consortium that wins the bid to build the bridge willlbe backed by the three governments concerned when it comes to construction costs. Based on estimated economic benefits brought by the bridge to the cities, Hong Kong is to contribute 50.2% of the shortfall, Guangdong 35.1% and Macao 14.7%.

The project has drawn criticism for its environmental impact. Some very rare pink dolphins, for example, live in the delta and critics have warned that they could be disturbed by the construction. It is not thought that this will stop the project.

Public tender of the project is expected soon and the winner will operate the bridge for 50 years. And it is thought it will take thirty of those years to get the money back.

Anthony Wong, president of Hong Kong Logistics Association, welcomed the long-awaited green light. The bridge would be a huge boost to the west side of Guangdong. And he got in an early pitch about the charges for using the bridge to get somewhere. He said, ‘It’s nice to have the hardware in place but it’s useless if nobody is willing to use it because it is too expensive.’

You can get a thorough understanding of the bridge by clicking HERE to see a very full illustration.
Source: Financial Times

The Economist with a major article — not all totally complimentary — on the galloping pace of building and expansion in China.

Some examples of growth.

Beijing’s new airport terminal, seen here during construction, was designed by the British firm Foster + Partners, and planned and built in four years by an army of 50,000 workers.

The terminal is 3km (1.8 miles) long. The floor space is 17% bigger than all the terminals at London’s Heathrow combined (including about-to-open Terminal Five). Part of a $3.8 billion expansion, which included the opening of a third runway in October, it is due to open at the end of this month, weeks ahead of schedule.

It is the ninth busiest airport in the world.

And it is part of the rush to improve China’s logistics infrastructure.

Between 2001 and the end of 2005 more was spent on roads, railways and other fixed assets than was spent in the previous 50 years. According to the state media, investment will see double-digit growth every year for the rest of the decade.

The world’s longest sea-crossing bridge is due to open in June: a 36km six-lane highway across Hangzhou Bay.
Shanghai is home to the current world-record holder for such a structure, the 32km Donghai bridge. This was opened less than three years ago to link the city with Yangshan port.
Yangshan is intended to be one of the world’s biggest deep-water facilities when completed at some point after 2010.
From August the 115km journey from Beijing to Tianjin, its nearest port, will be reduced to half an hour with the inauguration of a bullet-train link
Work began in January on a 1,300km line between Beijing and Shanghai which will be completed in five years’ time.
The world’s highest railway from Golmud to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa was completed in 2006.
Since the 1990s China has built an expressway network criss-crossing the country that is second only to America’s interstate highway system in length. By the end of 2007, some 53,600km of toll expressways had been built. The aim is to have 70,000km of expressways by 2020.
The World Bank says that China’s railways carry 25% of the world’s railway traffic on just 6% of its track length. In the past couple of years investment has grown considerably. This year’s target is $42 billion, compared with a total of $72 billion in the preceding five years.
The increase in air passenger traffic has been dramatic: from 7 million passengers in 1985 to over 185 million in 2007.
Source: The Economist

Approval has been given for a bridge connecting Shanghai’s Chongming Island and Jiangsu Province. The plan is part of a regional strategy to further integrate Shanghai with neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.

The bridge will span 7 km of the Yangtze River, linking Shanghai’s Chongming Island to the city of Qidong in Jiangsu.

The Shanghai section will be linked to an ongoing project connecting mainland Shanghai with Chongming Island by tunnel, bridge and expressway.

It is hoped that it will be completed by 2009 when it will cut travel time between Pudong and Chongming to 20 minutes. It would also cut travel time between Shanghai and Qidong to just over an hour and put any major city in Jiangsu Province within three hours’ drive from the municipality.

According to the city’s Labor Daily, construction on a bridge between Chongming and Qidong would officially start next year and finish in 2010. The construction would eventually become part of a highway network connecting Shanghai and Xi’an, Shaanxi Province.
Source: People’s Daily Online