Halcrow (in association with Flint and Neill partnership and Dissing + Weitling) in joint venture with SMEDI and Tongji University were the winners of a high profile competition to design the bridge for a 5km long bridge across the main navigation channel of the Yangtze River mouth in 2001.
Located near Shanghai at the mouth of the Yangtze River, the new cable stayed bridge forms a key part of the Chong Ming Crossing, which combines both bridge and tunnel sections.
The structure, with a world record cable-stayed main span of 1.2km, will form part of a 12km crossing from Shanghai to Chongming Island. This project is part of the largest ever urban project for Shanghai which involves the bridge, tunnel and elevated highway to connect the Changxing and Chongming islands to the city. Known as the Shanghai-Chongming expressway, the route will be some 25km long. The subsea tunnel, which forms part of the route, will run between Pudong and Changxing island. With a 13.8m internal and a 15.2m external diameter, the soft ground tunnel will be the largest of its type in the world.
Benefits
Experts said that the development of Chongming has been hampered by the inconvenient traffic between Shanghai and the island. The construction of the bridge and tunnel would help attract overseas investment and make the suburb a major channel of the Yangtze River Delta area.
Chongming is the third largest island in China with a total area of 1,041km2, and is expected to be the site of major development in the future. The river-crossing corridor will connect Shanghai downtown area to Chongming Island. The project is aiming to improve the coastal trunk roads in China and the transportation structure and layout of Shangai, to fully utilise the resources on Chongming Island, promote the economic development in northern Jiansu Province and further strengthen the role of Pudong District as the “Dragon Head” in the economic reform and open-up process of China.
Travelling time between Chongming and the mainland will be cut to about 30 minutes. At present, travel by high-speed boat takes 40 minutes and two hours by regular ferry. This latest project will transfer another 700,000 or so people from the world’s unbridged island population. Until now, Chongming may have been the most populous unbridged river island in the world.
The tunnel-bridge system is scheduled to officially open to traffic in 2010 but an exact date has not been announced.