"Er ah, Erlang Mountain, it's so high..." Many years ago, a song "Singing Erlang Mountain", which describes the hard years of building the Sichuan-Tibet Highway, sang the north and south of the river, and the road construction army of that year "let the mountains bow their heads, let the The heroism of "the river gives way" is vividly displayed. It is said that "you must drive 318 in this life", and those who walk through the most beautiful Sichuan-Tibet line of 318 will definitely be deeply impressed by the scenery along the way. The upgraded version of 318 Sichuan-Tibet line, Sichuan-Tibet Expressway, it is here!

Sichuan-Tibet Expressway, there are currently two planned, divided into the southern line and the northern line. The Sichuan-Tibet South Line is G4218 Yaye Expressway. The Sichuan-Tibet North Line is G4217 Rongchang Expressway.

Sichuan-Tibet South Line

G4218 Ya-Ye Expressway runs from Ya'an, Sichuan to Yecheng, Xinjiang, mainly through: Ya'an - Tianquan - Luding - Kangding - Litang - Batang - Mangkang - Basu - Nyingchi - Lhasa - Shigatse - Gar - Yecheng. It spans the three provinces of Sichuan, Tibet and Xinjiang. The line is roughly along the Sichuan-Tibet Highway (G318 National Highway) and the Xinzang Highway (G219 National Highway).

Yaye Expressway has a total length of about 3,900 kilometers, a design speed of 80-100 kilometers per hour, two-way four-lane, and the construction is carried out in stages. In the first stage (2015-2035), the section from Ya'an to Shigatse will be constructed. In the second stage (2030-2040), the section from Shigatse to Yecheng will be constructed. Except for the section from Ya'an to Nyingchi, which is a toll section, the rest are planned as high-grade expressways without tolls. The investment capital is expected to exceed 500 billion.

The proportion of bridges and tunnels on the whole line of Yaye Expressway is as high as 80%. The average altitude of the whole line is more than 3000 meters, and the highest altitude is 4500 meters. It crosses the entire Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Due to the complexity of the Sichuan-Tibet Expressway, industry experts refer to its construction as "climbing Mount Everest in the highway world".

Because the line is too long, Yaye Expressway is divided into multiple sections:

Yakang Expressway

The total length is 135 kilometers and the total investment is 23 billion yuan. It will be open to traffic by the end of 2018. It takes 3.5 hours to drive from Chengdu to Kangding, which is half the time.

There is the most difficult tunnel in history, the "Erlang Mountain Extra-long Tunnel", which is 13.4 kilometers long and passes through 13 earthquake fault zones. There are unfavorable geology such as gas, karst, and water inrush. most.

The "First Sichuan-Tibet Bridge" Xingkang Bridge was also born here. It spans the Dadu River in Luding, with a total length of 1411 meters and a span of 1100 meters, setting "six firsts" and "seven firsts".

Kangding-Xindu Bridge Section

The project route starts from Yulin, Kangding, connects to the expressway of Kangding transit section, passes through Maojiagou, Dacaoping, Ertaizi, sets up Zheduoshan Tunnel and crosses the mountain, passes through Tangniba, Shuiqiao, Maiba, and Waze, and ends at Xinxin. East Eruo Village, Duqiao Town. The preliminary design route is 79.449 kilometers long, with a total of 6065M/22 bridges, 42073.5M/8 tunnels, 4 interconnections (including 1 hub interconnection), and 2 service areas (Maojiagou complex and Waze service area) , 1 parking area, the bridge-tunnel ratio of the whole line is 65.1%. Construction will start on January 4, 2022, with a total investment of 16.457 billion yuan.

Social capital parties: Sichuan Tibetan Expressway Co., Ltd., China Railway Urban Development Investment Group Co., Ltd., Sichuan Chuanjiao Road and Bridge Co., Ltd.

Among them, the height difference between the entrance and exit of the Paomashan No. 1 Tunnel in the Kangding transit section of the Yaye Expressway reaches 222 meters, which is equivalent to the height of an 80-story building, making it the tunnel with the largest height difference between the entrance and the exit in the world.

Xinduqiao to Litang section

It is expected to start construction at the end of 2023. At present, the design plan has been determined to use the center line plan. The line is basically parallel to the 318 National Highway and the Sichuan-Tibet Railway. It is expected to be completed in 2026.

Litang to Nyingchi section

At present, the design plan has been determined, construction will start in 2025, and the construction is planned to be completed before 2035. This section is the most geologically complex road section on the entire line, and it is also the part with the highest proportion of bridges and tunnels. According to the design plan, there will be 50 tunnels and bridges reaching There are more than 100 tunnels, and the longest tunnels appear in the three continuous super-long tunnel groups of Sejila Mountain, Tongmai and Yigong, with a length of more than 100 kilometers.

Nyingchi to Lhasa section

With a total length of 409 kilometers and an investment of 38 billion yuan, it took 4 years to complete. It is the only free expressway in China. Reduce the travel time between the two places from 8 hours to less than 5 hours.

Lhasa to Shigatse Airport Highway

On February 1, 2021, the Lhasa section of the new reconstruction project (control project) of the G4218 Ya'an-Yecheng National Expressway from Lhasa to Shigatse Airport was opened for trial operation.

Kaze to Gar is under construction

Sichuan-Tibet North Line

The planned mileage of G4217 Rongchang Expressway is about 1086 kilometers. The route route is: Chengdu - Pidu - Dujiangyan - Wenchuan - Lixian - Malkang - Luhuo - Ganzi - Dege - Tibet (Jiangda).

The main line of Rongchang Expressway has 121 bridges and 32 tunnels, with a bridge-to-tunnel ratio of 86.5%, making it the expressway with the highest bridge-to-tunnel ratio in Sichuan. Especially if you go further west from Lixian, you will see a bridge when you exit the tunnel, and a tunnel when you cross the bridge.

Like the southern line, the northern line is also divided into several sections:

Chengguan Expressway

The total length is 40.439km, from Chengdu to Dujiangyan.

Duwen Expressway

With a total length of 82 kilometers, it starts from Dujiangyan and ends in Wenchuan County, Aba Prefecture. It was opened to traffic at the end of 2012. Constrained by complex terrain conditions and frequent geological disasters, Duwen Expressway is often congested and broken due to geological disasters.

At present, Aba Prefecture is planning the second expressway to enter Wenchuan. The Chengwen Expressway is 106 kilometers long and will be constructed in two phases. The starting point of the first phase of the project is the section from Chengdu Second Ring Expressway to Pengzhou Tongji, with a total length of 51 kilometers; the second phase of the project is the section from Pengzhou Tongji to Wenchuan County, with a total length of 55 kilometers.

Wenma Expressway

The section from Wenchuan to Malkang is 172 kilometers long, over a height difference of 2,000 meters, crosses three seismic fault zones, and solves dozens of technical problems.

There is the Shih Ping super-long tunnel, known as the "hardest bone" of the whole line, with a length of 13.15 kilometers. There is also the Partridge Mountain Tunnel, which is 8.8 kilometers above sea level and 3,200 meters above sea level. The air is thin, only 60% of the sea level.

Marcon to Dege

Among them, the pre-feasibility study of the expressway between Malkang and Aba-Ganzi state boundary has been approved.

The Ganzi section is under planning (Aba Ganzi state boundary - Luhuo - Ganzi - Dege - Gangtuo section).

Dege (Gangtuo) to Qamdo

From the 13.4-kilometer Erlang Mountain Extra-long Tunnel on the Yakang Expressway to the "Xingkang Bridge", the first Sichuan-Tibet bridge that has created 6 firsts and 7 firsts, Paomashan No. 1 with the world's largest import and export height difference in the transit section from Kangding From the tunnel to the Mira Mountain Tunnel of the Lalin Expressway, which has to be opened with an oxygen bottle on its back, generations of road builders have gone through countless hardships and overcame many difficulties, just for the good roads leading to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

From the Sichuan-Tibet Highway to the Sichuan-Tibet Expressway to the Sichuan-Tibet Railway, the snow-capped mountains have witnessed the change of the "passage", and the plateau has recreated the miracle of the "Sky Road".

According to the plan, the first phase of G4218 Yaye Expressway and G2417 Rongchang Expressway will be completed almost simultaneously with the Sichuan-Tibet Railway by 2035. By then, it will be extremely easy to enter and exit Tibet, and the mystery of Tibet will also make more and more people people understand. Let's look forward to it together! Editor/Sang Xiaomei