Expressways of China - History

History

Originally, China had been carrying out an ambitious plan to build up a 35,000 kilometer national trunk highway system. Construction of expressways began in 1988 and the network had been scheduled to be complete in 2020. The scale of the project can be seen by the fact that on January 1, 1989, the PRC had 147 km of freeways, but by January 1, 2008, it had 53,600 km of freeway, about 8,000 km of which were built in 2007. The main objective of the NTHS was to construct 12 high standard trunk roads: five longitudinal roads and seven latitudinal roads. 70% of the trunk roads are expressways. This project was completed by the end of 2007, 13 years ahead of the original plan. By the end of 2007, there were already 3.57 million km of highways, which includes 53,600 km (33,300 mi) of expressways. Design standards for China's National Trunk Highway System are derived from the standards used on the American Interstate Highway System, with Chinese expressway cross-sections, interchange profiles, and bridge designs closely reflecting their counterparts in the United States.

On January 13, 2005, it was announced by Zhang Chunxian, minister of communications, that China would build a network of 85,000 km expressways over the next three decades, connecting all provincial capitals and cities with a population of over 200,000. Of this total length, 68,000 km are trunk roads and 17,000 km are 5 regional ring roads. There are also 2 parallel routes and more than 30 connecting links. 32,000 km of expressway are to be built in central and western regions.