News archive

October 2004

Shanghai: major bridge and tunnel wins for Halcrow consortia

UK consultant, Halcrow, in partnership with Chinese engineers, Shanghai Municipal Engineering Design Institute (SMEDI) and Danish consultant COWI, has won the competition to design Shanghai’s Chongming North Bridge Crossing. This win, led by Dr Chen Ganwei, Halcrow’s technical director – bridges, comes on top of the project Halcrow recently secured in partnership with Shanghai Tunnel Engineering and Rail Transit Design and Research Institute (STEDI), Parsons Brinckerhoff (Asia) and The Third Harbour Engineering Investigation and Design Institute (THEIDI) for the 9km Chongming South Channel Tunnel.

These latest successes form 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 13.8minternal and a 15.2mexternal diameter, the soft ground tunnel will be the largest of its type in the world.

Crossing the estuary of the Yangtse River between mainland China and Chongming Island, the Chongming North Bridge Crossing will be 8.8km long and include a main navigational span of 730m.

Roger Buckby, Halcrow’s bridges director, comments “To win the bridge project SMEDI, Halcrow and COWI beat off two other contenders by securing the highest overall quality mark against a set of seven evaluation criteria. We are delighted to be part of the winning team and now look forward to developing the detail design with our partners.”

Bill Austin, Halcrow’s regional managing director adds, “To be part of two successful consortia is a great boost for Halcrow and underpins our position as one of the world’s leading consultancies. Teamwork founded on a fantastic team spirit was the key to our success with each organisation pooling their creative and innovative talents.”

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. 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. The project is valued at 12.3 billion yuan (US$1.48 billion).

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