On July 2, the reconstruction and expansion project of the Zhongjiang Expressway was approved, and the construction started in June 2021 ahead of schedule until the end of 2020.

The Zhongjiang Expressway was opened to traffic in November 2005. It has four lanes in both directions, a speed of 110 km/h, and a designed traffic volume of 50,000 standard trips. In recent years, due to local economic development along the route, the traffic volume has increased year by year. In 2018, the average daily traffic volume has exceeded 70,000 standard vehicle trips, which is an overloaded operation.

In order to alleviate traffic tension, Guangdong Provincial Transportation Group plans to restructure and expand Zhongjiang Expressway from the current two-way 4-lane to two-way 8-lane. The project started from the docking of Nanzhong Expressway in Gangkou Town, Zhongshan City, and finally connected to Jianghe Expressway in Xinhui District, Jiangmen City. The total length of the route is about 40 kilometers, and the designed speed is 120 kilometers per hour after expansion. On July 1, the soft foundation test section of the Zhongjiang reconstruction and expansion project has started, and the overall project will be completed and opened to traffic in 2024.

After the project is completed, it will greatly improve the expressway network of the Pearl River Delta, open up the bottleneck of the road network in the Pearl River Delta and western Guangdong, promote the economic development of the areas along the line, and ease the traffic congestion in the original road network. Editor/He Yuting