"The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is at the forefront of the trend."
In his 2024 New Year's message, General Secretary Xi Jinping commented on the pace of the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Half a year has passed, and the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has once again opened a new chapter, making a new footnote for "standing at the forefront of the tide".
The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor, which took seven years to build and cost nearly 50 billion yuan, will be officially opened to traffic on June 30.
Following the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, this is another world-class cross-sea super project at the Pearl River Estuary. So far, the travel time between Shenzhen and Zhongshan has been shortened from 2 hours to half an hour.
Between two points, the straight line is the shortest. The Shenzhong Passage has drawn a "key horizontal" for the A-shaped transportation network of the "Golden Inner Bay" in the Pearl River Estuary. The urban agglomerations on the east and west banks of the Pearl River Estuary, from facing each other across the sea to integrating across the sea, the entire Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has never seemed so "close".
"Building bridges": a metaphor for Chinese modernization
Promoting the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is a major national strategy personally planned, deployed and promoted by General Secretary Xi Jinping. "Make good use of the bridge and play an important role in the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area", "accelerate the construction of intercity railways in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and promote the efficient and convenient flow of personnel, goods and other elements", General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly put forward earnest entrustment to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to strengthen infrastructure construction and interconnection.
On October 23, 2018, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, known as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, was officially opened. After General Secretary Xi Jinping attended the opening ceremony of the bridge, he stressed when meeting with representatives of the management and construction of the bridge that the construction of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge has set a number of world highs, which is very remarkable, reflecting the spirit of a country to open roads and build bridges in the mountains, reflecting the mainland's comprehensive national strength and independent innovation ability, and embodying the national ambition of creating a world-class bridge.
The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is known as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.
Six years have passed, and the soon-to-be-opened Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor has been like another "dragon" on the east and west banks of the Pearl River Estuary, once again vividly interpreting the "spirit of struggle to open roads in the mountains and build bridges in the water", which has attracted worldwide attention in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Schematic diagram of the deep and middle passage
The Shenzhong Channel, with a total length of 24 kilometers, is a world-class cross-sea cluster project integrating bridges, islands, tunnels and underwater interconnection, and is one of the most difficult cross-sea cluster projects in the world at present.
The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor has 10 international leading technologies and has created 10 "world's best". Source: 21st Century Business Herald
The image of "small bridge" has been used by countless literati and artists since ancient times, and it is the soul of the "water town" with close personnel exchanges and frequent economic exchanges.
The image of the "bridge", with the first bridge built after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the "Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge" as an important starting point, has always clearly referred to the process of urbanization, industrialization and modernization, and is undoubtedly a milestone in the process of Chinese-style modernization.
This is true of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, as well as the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor.
In the various important projects of the Shenzhong Passage, from the perspective of sensory experience, the towering "Shenzhong Bridge" can be said to have "earned enough eyeballs".
Shenzhong Bridge
As one of the key control projects of the whole line, the bridge deck of the Shenzhong Bridge is 91 meters high, with a total length of 2,826 meters, the main span of the bridge is 1,666 meters, and the main tower is 270 meters high, which is equivalent to a 90-story building. With a navigable clearance height of 76.5 meters, even a super-large ship with 30,000 containers can easily pass through the channel under the bridge, meeting the navigation needs of 300,000-ton ships in the Lingding West Channel.
In addition to the "bridge", the construction of "islands, tunnels, and underwater interconnection" is also eye-catching. For example, the undersea tunnel section of the Shenzhong Passage is about 6.8 kilometers long, of which the immersed pipe section is connected by 32 sections of steel-shell immersed pipes and 1 final joint, with a total length of about 5,035 meters, which is currently the world's longest, widest, and most difficult steel-shell concrete submarine immersed tunnel in comprehensive construction. It is particularly noteworthy that in May this year, the International Tunneling Association awarded the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor the title of "50 Landmark Projects in the Field of Global Tunneling and Underground Engineering".
The completion of the Shenzhong Passage not only shocked the world with the majestic momentum of Changhong Lying Wave, but also contributed China's plan to the world's cross-sea passage project. As a metaphor for Chinese modernization, the "bridge" has become extremely concrete at this moment.
A channel that subverts the time and space experience of the Greater Bay Area
"Shuowen Jie Zi" records: "Bridges, water beams also." And the use of bridges, "to the future" is the key. "Bridge" naturally and fundamentally contains the meaning of "circulation", and this is especially true of "bridge" - it produces a strong visual impact and attraction with the "architectural wonder" nurtured by modernization, and at the same time improves the flow efficiency of various production factors within the economy by leaps and bounds.
As the main transportation artery connecting the urban agglomerations on the east and west banks of the Pearl River Estuary, the two-way eight-lane Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor connects Shenzhen, Zhongshan and Nansha, Guangzhou, and will form a cross-sea and cross-river channel group in the Greater Bay Area together with the completed Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, Nansha Bridge and Humen Bridge, which will effectively promote the infrastructure interconnection and coordinated economic development of the Greater Bay Area.
Schematic diagram of the cross-sea and cross-river passage group in the Greater Bay Area Source: South+
The most intuitive feeling that the opening of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor will bring is to greatly shorten the original 2-hour drive from Shenzhen to Zhongshan to half an hour. This will not only greatly shorten the time and space distance between Shenzhen and Zhongshan, but also further release the traffic pressure faced by the Humen Bridge and the Nansha Bridge, which are also the main traffic arteries on both sides of the Pearl River Estuary.
Taking the Humen Bridge as an example, on holidays, the map navigation is often a long line of "red and tongtong". According to public data, the Humen Bridge has a maximum daily traffic volume of nearly 200,000 vehicles, making it one of the busiest highway bridges in the country, while the average daily saturated standard traffic volume designed for the bridge is only 80,000 vehicles.
Even though the Nansha Bridge opened in April 2019, diverting some of the traffic, the traffic on the Humen Bridge is still busy. Some analysts pointed out that in 2023, there will be an average of 37.814 million paid vehicles crossing the Humen Bridge.
Traffic on the Humen Bridge is often congested. Source: Dagong Wenhui Network
The Humen Bridge, which has been overloaded for many years, will achieve structural improvements after the opening of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor. For residents in the Greater Bay Area, the intuitive feeling is that "the road is not so congested".
Yu Kam-hung, former president of the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors, pointed out in an interview with Direct News that in essence, the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor provides more travel options for people traveling between the east and west banks of the Pearl River Estuary, thus playing a role in diverting traffic to the Humen Bridge and others.
Yu Kam-hung, former president of the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors, was interviewed by Li Wensi, a reporter from Shenzhen Satellite TV Direct News in Hong Kong.
From a geographical point of view, the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor is about 30 kilometers away from the Humen Bridge in the north and about 31 kilometers away from the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge in the south. Yu Jinxiong believes that the completion of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor has played a key complementary role in the cross-sea transportation on the east and west banks of the Pearl River Estuary, and is of great significance to the construction of the "one-hour living circle" in the Greater Bay Area.
Wang Weiren, a professor at the Department of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong, told Zhi News that the completion of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor has changed people's perception of the geographical environment of the Greater Bay Area, especially people's experience in time and space. "The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor has changed the fragmented and discontinuous space-time experience of the Greater Bay Area in the past, allowing people to have a complete and continuous space-time experience between the east and west banks of the Pearl River Estuary, which truly reflects the overall sense of time and space of the 'Bay Area'."
Professor Wang Weiren of the Department of Architecture of the University of Hong Kong was interviewed by Qiu Qianyi, a reporter from Shenzhen Satellite TV Direct News in Hong Kong.
"The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor has changed the spatial experience of the Greater Bay Area, allowing us to truly connect the geographical area of the entire Bay Area, with our own scale, and with the control of time. This is very close to the spatial experience given by the San Francisco Bay Area. Wang Weiren emphasized.
The structural changes that have taken place in the experience of time and space have opened the "skylight of imagination" about the future development of the Bay Area. While the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor will greatly shorten the time and space distance of the urban agglomeration in the Greater Bay Area, it will also have a huge impact on the regional economic pattern on both sides of the Pearl River Estuary, especially the industrial pattern.
Although the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor is not as grand or long as the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, it is perhaps more important from an economic point of view. The most important reason is that the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge connects Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao, and the passage involves entry and exit, and there are specific requirements for the license plate of the driving vehicle; The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor is located in the belly of the Greater Bay Area, and there are no special restrictions on vehicles, so in terms of actual operation, the applicability of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor is more extensive.
As an important connecting channel, the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor will allow Zhongshan to directly benefit from the dividends of Shenzhen's development, and Shenzhen will also use this as a fulcrum to leverage the broader western part of Guangdong. The economic "gears" of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area will be accelerated.
Yu Jinxiong pointed out that in the future, the east and west sides of the Pearl River Estuary will be more closely connected, and at the same time, the degree of economic coordination will be higher. "The overall development of the east coast is more prosperous, while the land on the west coast is more sufficient, which means that the resources of the two sides of the strait can be complemented to a higher degree in the future, which is of great strategic significance for the development of the Greater Bay Area."
The Greater Bay Area is getting smaller and smaller
The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area was born to the sea, standing because of the port and thriving on the bay. With the opening of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor as a major symbol, the "bridges" that have been completed one after another at the Pearl River Estuary are drawing a new blueprint for the development of the Greater Bay Area.
On 18 February 2019, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council publicly released the Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (the "Outline"). The "Outline" clearly states that it is necessary to promote the integrated development of multiple rail networks and build a Greater Bay Area on the track, which points out the direction for the integrated development of rail transit in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is an important part of China's transformation from a big country to a strong country. At this juncture of the fifth anniversary of the issuance of the Outline, the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor has undoubtedly become another milestone achievement for Guangdong to help build the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area into a strategic fulcrum for the development of a new development pattern, a demonstration site for high-quality development, and a leading place for Chinese-style modernization.
Liu Ying, a researcher at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of the Chinese University and director of the cooperative research department, told Zhi News that the actual utilization rate of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge needs to be further improved due to the constraints of "soft connectivity" factors such as systems, mechanisms and rules, and after the opening of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor, its actual operating efficiency, traffic density and utilization degree are likely to be higher than those of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.
"If the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge has strategically and geographically realized the closed loop of the Greater Bay Area, then the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor has realized the 'second closed loop' in a new sense, that is, it has laid a solid foundation for the high-quality economic development of the Greater Bay Area in multiple dimensions such as economic circulation, industrial coordination, transportation and logistics, and supply chain." Liu Ying emphasized.
From the perspective of the Pearl River Estuary as a whole, the construction of cross-river corridors is a key part of the cross-city infrastructure connectivity in the Greater Bay Area. The Pearl River Estuary is also under construction or planned to be constructed through the Huangmaohai Sea-crossing Channel, the Lianhuashan Channel, the Shiziyang Channel, the Shenzhen-Mao Railway Pearl River Road-Railway Bridge, the Zhongshan-Nansha-Humen Intercity Railway, and the Shenzhen-Zhuhai Intercity Railway, which will greatly enhance the transportation links between the east and west wings of the Greater Bay Area and accelerate the rapid development of the west bank of the Pearl River.
Looking at the entire Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the "Greater Bay Area on the track" is accelerating, and the "one-hour living circle" in the Greater Bay Area is accelerating its formation. Rail transit has gradually formed a three-level network of "national railway trunk lines, intercity railways, and urban rail transit", with more than 5,400 kilometers of rail transit mileage in operation and under construction.
A month ago, the Guangzhou-Foshan South Ring Road and Foguan Intercity in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area were officially opened for operation, and the Fozhou-Zhaozhou Intercity and Dongguan-Huizhou Intercity that have been opened are connected from end to end, and the "four lines" connect the "five cities", which is known as the "large subway" of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which has aroused heated discussions among netizens.
On May 26, the Guangzhou-Foshan South Ring Road and Foguan Intercity were officially put into operation, connecting with the Fozhou-Zhaozhou Intercity and Dongguan-Huizhou Intercity that have been opened, realizing the "four-line" operation.
In addition, the seamless cross-city connectivity of urban rail has become an important part of infrastructure connectivity in the Greater Bay Area. After the completion of Guangzhou Metro Line 18, it can realize cross-city direct access, leading to Zhongshan and Zhuhai; Guangzhou, Dongguan and Shenzhen intercity railways have also been put into operation. In addition to the Hong Kong-Shenzhen-Guangzhou Express Railway, which has already opened to traffic, the Pearl River-Zhaoqing Express Railway, which connects Zhuhai, Jiangmen, Foshan and Zhaoqing, is also under construction.
The Greater Bay Area on the track is becoming more and more "small", but the pattern is getting "bigger" and "bigger".
Author: Chen Miaosong, chief writer of Shenzhen Satellite TV Direct News