As a core node project of the "high-speed rail to city" strategy in the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area, the Guangzhou East Station renovation project with a total investment of 34.6 billion yuan has recently completed the bidding work and is scheduled to officially start construction at the end of December. This renovation is not only a new upgrade of the transportation hub in Tianhe CBD, Guangzhou, but also a reconstruction of the railway network pattern in the Greater Bay Area, becoming a super transportation hub connecting the core areas of Guangdong East, Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta. It is expected to achieve a transportation level leap of "1-hour commuting in the Bay Area and 3-hour connectivity in the Long Triangle" after a construction period of 5.5 years.The project plan is centered around "station city integration and three-dimensional connection", with a total construction area of over 700000 square meters. It will expand and upgrade the existing station yard to a scale of 14 sets of 24 lines, including 8 sets of 15 lines for high-speed rail yards and 6 sets of 9 lines for conventional speed rail yards, while simultaneously reserving access conditions for the Guangzhou Zhuhai Macau high-speed rail. The focus of the renovation includes the construction of elevated waiting halls, underground transfer hubs, urban corridors on both sides of the east and west, as well as the renovation project of the station building facade. After completion, it will completely change the current situation of insufficient station capacity and inconvenient transfer. The annual passenger capacity will be increased from the current 30 million to 60 million, and it will become one of the top railway hubs in the country.

It is worth noting that the project will achieve a four-dimensional three-dimensional transfer of "railway+subway+long-distance passenger transportation+urban public transportation". Subway lines 1, 3, 18, and 28 (planned) will form a "zero transfer" network within the station, and passengers can transfer to the subway as quickly as 3 minutes after leaving the high-speed railway station. At the same time, a 300000 square meter commercial complex, urban green axis, and underground parking lot will be built around the station building to create a "hub economy complex" that integrates transportation hub, business office, and leisure consumption, becoming the connecting core between Tianhe CBD and Guangzhou's eastern development axis.

This bidding covers 12 core sections including station building main construction, track laying, mechanical and electrical installation, and supporting municipal engineering, attracting domestic infrastructure leading enterprises such as China Railway Construction and China Communications Construction to participate. The bidding announcement clearly requires the construction unit to adopt modular construction and green construction technology to minimize the impact on the operation of the existing station and surrounding traffic, while simultaneously promoting cultural relic protection work and preserving and revitalizing the original historical building elements of the East Station.

The project leader introduced that after the completion of the renovation of Guangzhou East Station, it will be connected to multiple backbone lines such as Guangzhou Shantou High speed Railway, Gan Shen High speed Railway, and Guangzhou Shenzhen Hong Kong High speed Railway, achieving functional complementarity and linkage with Guangzhou South Station, Baiyun Station, and Guangzhou Station, forming a "four main and four auxiliary" Guangzhou railway hub pattern. For the Greater Bay Area, this project will strengthen Guangzhou's transportation radiation capacity as a national central city, shorten the time and space distance between eastern Guangdong and the core area of the Pearl River Delta, add a key pivot to the "Greater Bay Area on the track", and help promote regional economic integration development. As the start of construction at the end of December approaches, this transportation hub that carries the memories of the city and the dreams of the Bay Area is about to embark on a new chapter.Editor/Bian Wenjun