On December 3, the Anhui Provincial Department of Transport announced that the Environmental Impact Report for the Anhui Provincial Expressway Network Plan (2016-2030) was recently published for its first public consultation. According to the draft plan for comments, Anhui plans to add 18 new expressways on the basis of the original plan, with a total additional mileage of 1,586 km. By 2030, the total expressway mileage in Anhui is planned to reach 7,391 km.
　　By the end of this year, Anhui will complete an investment of 23 billion yuan in expressway construction and will complete expressway projects including the Dangshan section and Yongli section of the Ji-Qi Expressway, the Anhui section of the Yue-Wu Expressway, the Tong-Nan-Xuan Expressway, the Ningguo-Qianqiuguan section, the Chu-Ma Expressway, and the north bank connection line of the Wangdong Yangtze River Bridge, adding 450 km of new expressway mileage. By then, the total expressway mileage in Anhui will exceed 4,200 km, basically forming a relatively complete provincial expressway network, and all county towns in Anhui will have access to expressways within half an hour. At present, more than 20 expressway projects have been preliminarily determined to be included in the national highway "13th Five-Year" development plan, and related project construction has been launched.
　　With the rapid economic development and industrial structure transformation of Anhui, there is an imbalance between transport demand and transport capacity, which has put forward new requirements for the layout of the existing expressway network in Anhui. Therefore, the Provincial Department of Transport organized the compilation of the "Anhui Provincial Expressway Network Plan (2016-2030)". According to the layout scheme proposed in the draft for comments, Anhui will add 18 new expressways on the basis of the original plan of 25 expressways, with a total additional mileage of 1,586 km. By 2030, the total expressway mileage in Anhui is planned to reach 7,391 km. The plan generally implements the layout concept of "optimizing the road network, strengthening corridors, and improving coverage". Once completed, it will form an expressway network across the province featuring "the provincial capital radiating to surrounding areas, cities interconnected, and expressways reaching every county", with a more rational overall structure.
　　At present, the environmental impact report of the plan has been published for public consultation. Before December 10, the public may send letters, faxes, emails, etc. to the address designated in the announcement to express their opinions and views on the plan and the environmental impact assessment work.