Plans for maglev lines to cut traveling time, Shanghai and Guangzhou building travel hubs
March 2, 2021 Category Travel, Weekly
A new maglev train could cut travel time between Shanghai and Guangzhou to 2½ hours. The project is included in Guangzhou’s masterplan for 2020 and 2035. The Department of Natural Resources of Guangdong province has publicized the blueprint on its official website to solicit public opinions through March 11. The plan was released along with another planned maglev line linking Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macao. The traveling time between Beijing and Guangzhou will also be shortened to about three hours and 20 minutes, half the time the Beijing-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway takes.
Shanghai has China’s first commercial maglev service, a 30 kilometer track linking Pudong International Airport with a metro stop in Pudong. The system, based on German maglev technology, can reach a top speed of just over 400 km per hour. China’s first medium-and-low speed maglev line with a design speed of 100 km per hour started operation in 2016 in Changsha, Hunan Province, the Shanghai Daily reports.
Shanghai plans to transform the Hongqiao area and neighboring locations into an international hub to further promote the integration and opening up of the Yangtze River Delta. The planned Hongqiao international hub will include the 151-square kilometer Hongqiao Central Business District located in the west of Shanghai and two extended strips – one going northward to Suzhou, Jiangsu province, and the other going southward to Haining, Zhejiang province. Hongqiao already has one of the country’s busiest international airports and a high-speed railway station. According to the plan, the area will be fully constructed by 2035. The plan aims to form a greater metropolitan city cluster around Shanghai that will further the delta’s integration with the world economy. The plan includes favorable policies such as facilitating foreign entrepreneurship, international trade and finance, and accelerating the construction and upgrading of regional railway networks and international transportation infrastructure. Many intercity rail lines and highways will be built to create a two-hour transportation circle between the Hongqiao Central Business District and major neighboring cities. The current Hongqiao transportation hub, which brings together high-speed rail, an airport and local metro lines, handles 400 million passengers a year.
Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, is promoting the construction of a global transportation hub by increasing investment in the building or expansion of its airport, ports, high-speed railway lines and expressways. It will also enhance connectivity with Hong Kong and Macao and other major cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to speed up construction of a world-class Bay Area, said Zhou Qingfeng, Deputy Director of Guangzhou’s Development and Reform commission. “As a national core city, Guangzhou will be able to play a leading role in coordinating and promoting the planning and construction of an advanced intercity railway network in the Greater Bay Area in the following years,” Zhou said. Guangzhou is planning to build a high-speed railway line linking Guangzhou South Railway Station and Guangzhou Railway Station that will reduce the time it takes to travel from its downtown area to Hong Kong to one hour. Guangzhou will also build a railway link with Macao. “Guangzhou plans to construct 15 intercity railway projects with a total investment of CNY398.3 billion to help connect Guangzhou with major cities in the Greater Bay Area,” Zhou said, as reported by the China Daily.
Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, the world’s busiest passenger airport last year, started its third-phase expansion project, including construction of a new terminal and two runways, late last year. The airport, which now operates more than 230 international flight routes, will have three terminals and five runways, allowing it to handle more than 140 million passengers a year once the expansion project is completed. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the Guangzhou airport handled 43.8 million passengers last year.
Yuan Yue, Deputy Director of Guangzhou Port, said it now operates more than 210 international container ocean routes and will complete the fourth-phase expansion of Nansha Port, located at the mouth of the Pearl River, this year. Guangzhou Port handled more than 56.7 million metric tons of cargo last month, a year-on-year increase of 19.3% and a record high for a single month. Its cargo throughput reached 636 million metric tons last year, ranking fourth in the world, while its container throughput was 23.5 million TEU, fifth in the world. Guangzhou’s transport department and metro company have also promised to expand and improve the city’s expressways and subway network to support its ambition to become an international transportation hub.
The Chinese government also issued a plan to upgrade the country’s transport network by 2035, when there are expected to be about 200,000 km of railways, 460,000 km of highways and 25,000 km of high-grade waterways, with 27 major coastal ports, 36 major inland ports, about 400 civil airports and about 80 postal express delivery hubs.
- KURT VANDEPUTTE (UMICORE) APPOINTED CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF THE FLANDERS-CHINA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE (FCCC)
- Webinar: “Knowing Your Chinese Partner” – May 26, 2021, 10 am – 12 am
- EMA starts rolling review of CoronaVac, WHO approves Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use
- The Global Times warns not to politicize the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI)
- Hainan to become biggest duty-free market in the world