Recently, the bidding results for the renovation and expansion project of the G55 Second Guangzhou Expressway from Xiangyang to Jingzhou were officially announced. A consortium led by China Gezhouba Group Co., Ltd. and composed of 16 industry backbone units including Hubei Transportation Investment Group Co., Ltd., stood out with comprehensive advantages and successfully won the bid, winning the provincial key project with a total investment of 22.7 billion yuan. This marks the substantial promotion stage of the upgrading and transformation of this transportation artery that runs through the central Hubei region.

As a key section of the national expressway network, the Xiangjing section of the Second Guangzhou Expressway starts from Longzhong Interchange in Xiangcheng District, Xiangyang City, and passes through Yicheng City, Zhongxiang City, Dongbao District, and other places to the south, ending at Cao'an Hub in Jingzhou District, Jingzhou City. The total length is about 177.4 kilometers, of which the mileage in Jingmen is 119 kilometers. It is a north-south transportation core channel connecting the Central Plains region with the Jianghan Plain and the Hunan Guangdong region. With the rapid development of regional economy, the existing two-way four lane road can no longer meet the traffic demand, and problems such as frequent holiday congestion and limited logistics efficiency have become increasingly prominent, becoming a traffic bottleneck restricting the coordinated development of the "Xiangshi Suishen" and "Yijing Jing" urban agglomerations. This renovation and expansion project will completely solve this dilemma. It will be constructed according to the standard of a two-way eight lane expressway, with a design speed of 120 kilometers per hour and a roadbed width of 42 meters. Based on the existing highway corridor, it will mainly adopt the construction mode of widening on both sides. A total of 14 interchanges will be set up along the entire line, covering key nodes such as Huji, Jingmen North, and Wulipu. After completion, the traffic capacity will achieve a qualitative leap.

The project is scheduled to officially start construction in December 2025, with a total construction period of 1260 calendar days (approximately 3.5 years), and is expected to be completed and opened to traffic in mid-2029. During the construction process, the Gezhouba consortium will fully leverage the synergies of the entire industry chain and the experience of integrated investment, construction, and operation projects, coordinate the planning, design, investment, construction, and operation management of the entire lifecycle services, and minimize the impact on existing transportation while ensuring project quality and construction safety. The project not only focuses on road expansion, but also integrates the concept of green construction. It will optimize route design through technological innovation, reduce ecological environment disturbance, and simultaneously improve supporting facilities such as traffic signs and smart monitoring, creating a safe, efficient, and intelligent modern expressway.

This bid is a concentrated reflection of Gezhouba Group's transformation and upgrading achievements in the field of infrastructure. In the fierce competition among strong players, the consortium, with its mature project management system, strong technical strength, and rich regional engineering experience, emerged victorious with a slight advantage in the competition with industry giants such as Sichuan Road and Bridge Group and China Communications Second Navigation Bureau, demonstrating its comprehensive competitiveness in large-scale transportation infrastructure projects. After the completion of the project, it will significantly enhance the level of regional transportation hub, with an expected annual traffic capacity to more than double, significantly reducing logistics costs and travel time costs, and reducing multiple economic losses caused by traffic congestion for society every year. At the same time, the project will further connect the economic network of the central Hubei region, strengthen the industrial linkage and resource complementarity between cities such as Xiangyang, Jingzhou, and Jingmen, inject strong impetus into investment attraction, industrial agglomeration, and tourism development along the route, and have important strategic significance for improving the comprehensive three-dimensional transportation corridor of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and supporting the implementation of the "Central Rise" strategy.

As a key project of Hubei Province's "14th Five Year Plan" for comprehensive transportation development, this project is also a deep practice of infrastructure investment and financing system reform. By introducing social capital to form a consortium to participate in investment, construction, and operation, it not only alleviates government investment pressure, but also improves project construction quality and operational efficiency through full lifecycle responsibility binding, providing a replicable and promotable experience model for subsequent similar renovation and expansion projects. In the future, the Gezhouba consortium will form a professional project team to accelerate the preliminary work of land approval, land acquisition and demolition, optimize the construction organization plan, create high-quality projects with the spirit of craftsmanship, and help Hubei build a comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network of "public, iron, water and air", writing a new chapter in the high-quality development of transportation in the central region.Editor/Bian Wenjun