With the development of construction, China has occupied many "firsts" titles, China has many "world firsts", in different industries, different fields, and different regions, silently blessing...Among them, there is one of the world's firsts, you may be afraid In any case, it is inseparable.

That is China's highway!

Yes, after more than 40 years of construction, China's highway mileage has long been the world's number one. From nothing to number one in the world, how difficult is it to build this "golden channel"?

Look at China along the highway, let's go!

Daxing Airport North Line Expressway

From scratch to "World No. 1"

After more than 800 days and nights, the Jiandongshan Tunnel, the first extra-long tunnel on the entire Chongqing Chengkai Expressway, has recently achieved a double-hole connection. This is Chongqing's first inter-provincial passage connecting Shaanxi to the north.

Last month, the Lhasa section of the G4218 Ya’an-Yecheng National Expressway—Lhasa-Xigaze Airport Section Highway New Reconstruction Project was opened for trial operation. So far, this section of road has become an important trunk line for highway traffic radiating from the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region to the western Tibet region.

In recent years, the construction of highways in various parts of China has blossomed in many places, greatly shortening the time and space distance between provinces and important cities, speeding up the flow of resource elements between regions, and playing an important role in promoting the operation of the national economy.

From the vertical latitude, the development time of China's expressways is not long, only more than 40 years; and horizontally, China started even half a century later than developed countries. But in such a short period of more than forty years, China's expressways have achieved a leap-forward development from "nothing" to "world number one".

Lhasa section of highway under construction

1988 was the "first year" of expressways in mainland China.

In this year, the 20.5-kilometer-long Hujia Expressway Phase I project, the two sections of Shenyang-Anshan and Dalian-Shilibao of Liaoning-Shenyang-Dalian Expressway with a total length of 131 kilometers were completed and opened to traffic. By the end of 1988, the total mileage of expressways in Mainland China had reached 147 kilometers, and the expressway had achieved a zero breakthrough, completely ending the history of no expressways in Mainland China.

In 2012, China's highway mileage reached 96,000 kilometers, surpassing the United States for the first time and ranking first in the world.

At the end of 2019, the total mileage of China's highways reached 5.01 million kilometers, which was 5.6 times that of 1978; the national highway mileage reached 150,000 kilometers; the mileage of secondary and above highways reached 672,000 kilometers, 57 times that of 1979, accounting for the country. The proportion of total highway mileage increased from 1.3% to 13.4%.

At the end of the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, China's highway mileage was about 5.1 million kilometers, including 155,000 kilometers of expressways, which continued to be the number one in the world.

Guangdong Kaiyang Expressway opens eight-lane traffic

From "Shenzhou First Road" to "Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge"

Among the representative expressway projects, the Shenyang-Dalian expressway must have a seat.

The Shenzhou-Dalian Expressway opened up a new era of China's expressway construction. It was recorded in history as an important milestone in the rise and development of China's expressway, and is known as the "First Road in China".

Today, the Shenyang-Dalian section of the G15 Shenyang-Haikou National Expressway, with a total length of 375 kilometers, is the "golden passage" of the Liaodong Peninsula. It plays a very important foundation for the economic and social development and opening up of the entire province of Liaoning and the entire Northeast region. Sexual and leading role.

The Beijing-Tianjin-Tangzhou Expressway is China’s first expressway approved by the State Council, with a total length of about 143 kilometers. It is the first expressway from Beijing to Tianjin Port, creating a number of firsts in the history of expressway construction in China. : The first large-scale highway engineering project designed and constructed in accordance with the requirements of modern expressways; the first inter-provincial and municipal expressway that does not have a main line station and implements the "one-vote system" toll, etc.

The development of China's highways is inseparable from the support of bridge construction technology.

In the past two decades, China’s long bridge construction technology has ushered in a historical development period of "innovation and transcendence". Jiangyin Bridge, Sutong Bridge, Runyang Bridge, Xihoumen Bridge, Jiashao Bridge, and Taizhou Bridge have been built successively. , Ma'anshan Bridge, Humen Second Bridge, Hangzhou Bay Bridge, Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, etc., represented a large number of world-class projects across rivers and seas.

Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge

Among them, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, which was officially opened to traffic in October 2018, is the first super-large cross-sea transportation project jointly managed by Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, with a total length of 55 kilometers. This is currently the world’s longest overall length, longest steel structure bridge, and longest submarine immersed tube tunnel in the world. It is also the most technically complex, most difficult, and largest-scale bridge project in the history of highway construction.

"The roads are connected and all industries are prospering." The importance of road transportation construction to the country's social development is self-evident.

If you want to get rich, build roads first, and the development side will last. The mountains will cross the long river, and the sky will become a thoroughfare. More than 40 years of expressway development history is a microcosm of the rapid development of China's transportation infrastructure. Today, China has accumulated rich experience in highway construction. With the development of transportation technology, China is moving from a veritable "transportation power" to a "transportation power". Editor/Sang Xiaomei