Recently, the groundbreaking ceremony of the Xihushan Tunnel on the Liujiang Expressway was successfully held, marking the substantive construction stage of this key project in the 14th Five Year Plan of Hunan Province's expressway, laying a key foundation for the full line to be completed by the end of 2025 and achieving the overall construction period goal.

As the second expressway connecting Liuyang and Changsha, Liujiang Expressway starts from Chayuan Bay in Xihu Village, Jili Street in the east, seamlessly connecting with Liuhong Expressway, and ends at Jiangbei to Ganshan Expressway in the west, with a total length of about 26.765 kilometers. After the completion of the project, a regional expressway network will be formed, significantly optimizing the transportation pattern in the western part of the Changsha Zhuzhou Xiangtan urban agglomeration and becoming an important transportation artery for the Hunan Jiangxi border regional cooperation demonstration zone.

The Xihushan Tunnel, which started construction this time, has a total length of 1.53 kilometers and adopts a double tunnel design. The net width of a single tunnel is 9.75 meters, and the designed speed is 80 kilometers per hour. As the core project of the West Lake Mountain Connection Line, the tunnel will directly connect to the main urban area of Liuyang after completion, forming a fast track of "highway tunnel urban area". The dual hole design not only meets the requirements of two-way four lane traffic, but also reserves space for emergency lanes and intelligent monitoring system installation, enabling safe passage around the clock. Compared with the existing channels, the traffic efficiency is expected to increase by more than 40%, completely solve the problem of holiday congestion, drive the industrial upgrading of three surrounding towns and two industrial parks, and increase the annual freight volume by 2 million tons. The attractiveness of the cultural and tourism industry is expected to increase by 30%.

The project adopts BIM technology for full cycle management and innovatively applies intelligent tunnel construction system to achieve real-time monitoring of construction progress and quality traceability. According to the plan, the tunnel construction will simultaneously implement ecological restoration projects, creating a green tunnel model through slope greening and tunnel entrance landscape design. As a key project in Hunan Province, this project has been included in the demonstration project of the Ministry of Transport's Safe Century Quality Engineering Creation. Its construction experience will provide a replicable Hunan solution for the construction of highways in mountainous and hilly areas nationwide. Editor/Cheng Liting