On Road to City's New Motorway

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 ◆ On Road to City's New Motorway

The city plans to build a motorway from Shanghai to Haimen in Jiangsu Province via Chongming Island at an estimated cost of 8 billion Yuan(US$964 million), according to today's China Daily. "It is vital in enhancing the city's competitiveness and building up its links with the neighbouring province," said a source called Zhu with the municipal engineering and administration department. The island's economy, based on travel and biological resources, will also be greatly spurred, Zhu said. "We are welcoming international designers, investors and constructors to take part in this big event," he added. The administration has organized a team to take care of the project which involves a 25-kilometre river-crossing. From the middle of February to the end of March, the team organized eight groups to work on feasibility studies and look at geography, meteorology and traffic flow. "It will be practical to build either a tunnel under the river or a bridge over the river," said Yan Xuexin, director of the Institute of Land Subsidence & Water Resources of the municipal Institute of Geology. The institute has allocated nearly 80 experts to the investigation armed with modern techniques on the earth's physical and geological features.