Transportation sector growth picks up speed (3)

People from the Yi ethnic group sing during a train journey from Chengdu, Sichuan province, to Kunming, Yunnan province, last month. JIANG HONGJING/XINHUA

Integrated development

On Dec 31, the latest section of a smart freeway linking Beijing and Xiong'an New Area in neighboring Hebei province opened to traffic.

It cuts the journey time from Beijing to about 50 minutes and plays a strategic role in boosting the integrated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster, the ministry said.

The section — roughly 12 km, running from the capital's South Sixth Ring Road to the city boundary — is part of the Beijing-Xiong'an freeway, the most convenient road corridor from the capital to the new area.

When completed, the freeway will extend more than 100 km, with about 27 km in Beijing and 75 km in Hebei.

The Beijing section, which cost 12.21 billion yuan, has four lanes in each direction, which will cut the journey time by up to 30 minutes.

"It is the most convenient fast road link between Beijing and Xiong'an. It is only 82 km from the South Sixth Ring Road to the new area, which greatly improves efficiency," said Wang Jianhui, an official with the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport. The section also links with a freeway that runs to the Beijing Daxing International Airport, making it easier to travel to the hub from Xiong'an, he added.

Driving on the newly opened freeway, bullet trains can often be seen running parallel with the vehicles.

Nearly half the freeway's Beijing section — about 13 km — runs alongside a high-speed railway linking Beijing and Shijiazhuang, Hebei's capital, which reduces the impact of the transportation network on the environment, said Cui Genqun, president of China Railway Jingxiong (Beijing) Expressway Development, the company in charge of construction and operation.

"Being green is one of many such features of the advanced expressway," he said.

Construction involved about 22 hectares of a park filled with pear trees, 126 of them more than 50 years old. However, instead of digging up the 126 old trees, the construction team transplanted them to stand outside the core construction area.

"It protects the old trees and also provides a beautiful landscape for the freeway," Cui said.