The Hezhou-Gaolan Port Expressway has entered its second phase of construction running across the Jitimen Waterway, under Gaolan Port Express Road, through Lianwan Mt, and over Zhuhai Avenue at the Nanshui Interchange.

The 16-km (10-mile) second phase is budgeted at 3.9 billion yuan ($565 million). It will cut travel time between Xiangzhou District and the Gaolan Port Economic Zone from more than one and a half hours to 30 minutes upon completion in 2022. Western Guangdong will be reachable within an hour. Logistics, transport, and other industries near Gaolan will also benefit.

Costing 8.58 billion yuan ($1.2 billion), the entire 35-km (22-mile) expressway runs from Bawei Village in Baijiao Town, Doumen District to the Jiangmen-Zhuhai Expressway, and Honghe and Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao (HZM) bridges.

Construction commenced in November 2017 at an overall cost of 2 billion yuan ($291 million). At present, work on the 18-km (11-mile) section to the Airport Expressway has shifted from the bridge substructure to the upper structure.

Phase II construction site [Photo by Zhang Zhou / Zhujiang Evening Post]

Eventually the expressway will merge into the Gaolan Port Expressway and Huangmao Sea Channel Bridge to Jiangmen and western Guangdong.

The dual six-lane structure is designed with a speed of 100 kmph (62 mph). It comprises mostly viaducts due to soft soil along the route, according to Jiang Bingyuan, head of the Engineering Department of Zhuhai Hezhou-Gaolan Port Expressway Co.

The section to East Airport Road will open before the 13th China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition (Airshow China) in November 2020. Those who go to Zhuhai (Jinwan) Airport from the downtown area can access the expressway via the HZM Bridge artificial island, or Hongwan and Nanping interchanges. The trip will take 20 to 30 minutes.

The opened section will extend to the Airport Expressway in mid-2021 and basically run across the Jinwan District. At that time, transportation between the district and the downtown area will be more convenient, and the traffic pressure of Zhuhai Bridge is expected to be greatly eased.