Revitalizing eastern, western, and northern Guangdong, transportation goes first. In July 2013, the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government issued the "Decision on Further Promoting the Revitalization and Development of Eastern, Western, and Northern Guangdong Regions", and the external connectivity and internal links of the transportation network were listed as one of the "three key measures". Since then, the construction of transportation infrastructure in the eastern, western, and northern Guangdong regions has entered the "fast lane".

Statistics show that from the end of 2012 to the end of 2016, Guangdong built more than 2,100 kilometers of new expressways, nearly two-thirds of which were concentrated in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong. According to the plan, during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, Guangdong, the largest economic province, will continue to make efforts to shore up shortcomings in infrastructure. By 2020, the expressway mileage in Guangdong will exceed 11,000 kilometers.

In the past four years, the transportation conditions in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong have undergone fundamental changes. Experts point out that where roads are open, wealth flows. Areas in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong where transportation location conditions have been significantly improved often quickly enter the stage of rapid industrialization and urbanization, rapidly grow into new growth poles in the region, and drive the development of surrounding areas.

"External Connectivity": Expressway Mileage in Eastern, Western, and Northern Guangdong to Surpass the Pearl River Delta

On December 26 last year, five expressway projects undertaken by Guangdong Provincial Transportation Group started construction on the same day. They are all distributed in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong: the Heyuan Zijin to Huizhou Huiyang section of the Heyuan-Huizhou-Dongguan Expressway, the Wuhua to Luhe section of the Xingning-Shanwei Expressway, the Meizhou East Ring Branch of the Meizhou-Dabu Expressway, the second phase of the Chaoshan Ring Expressway (including the Chaoshan Link), and the Luoding-Xinyi Expressway project.

In 2013, Guangdong launched a major expressway construction campaign, with the main battlefield in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong. At that time, the expressway area density in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong was low, only 58% of the provincial average and less than one-third of that in the Pearl River Delta. Only with roads can wealth flow. Among the "three key measures" for revitalizing eastern, western, and northern Guangdong, external connectivity and internal links of the transportation network are the foundation and prerequisite, and thus were listed as top priorities by the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government.

In 2011, the Pearl River Delta took the lead in achieving "expressways in every county". At the end of 2015, the last eight counties (cities) in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong without expressways, including Jiexi and Luhe, entered the "expressway" era, and Guangdong achieved "expressways in every county". By the end of last year, the total expressway mileage in Guangdong reached 7,673 kilometers, ranking first in the country, and most of the new expressways in the past five years were located in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong.

This year, the expressway mileage in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong will surpass that of the Pearl River Delta, achieving three expressway corridors from the core area of the Pearl River Delta to eastern Guangdong, six expressway corridors to western Guangdong (including Yunfu), and nine expressway corridors to northern Guangdong. The construction of expressways connecting eastern, western, and northern Guangdong with the Pearl River Delta has improved the overall transportation conditions in the region and laid a solid foundation for promoting coordinated regional development.

According to the earlier issued "Implementation Plan for Promoting Supply-Side Structural Reform of Infrastructure in Guangdong Province", Guangdong plans to invest about 458 billion yuan from 2017 to 2020 to construct 92 expressway projects, basically complete the Guangdong section of national expressways, fully connect provincial trunk lines, form a "ten vertical, six horizontal, two ring" expressway backbone network, achieve more than five expressway corridors with each neighboring province (region), and reach a total mileage of 11,000 kilometers. Transportation in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong will be further improved.

"Internal Links": Upgrading Urban Road Networks

Yinying Highway is the main route for Qingyuan residents to Yingde and Shaoguan, and also a key local economic artery. However, the Feilaixia section of Yinying Highway had for a long time been riddled with deep potholes and scattered rocks and soil, forcing vehicles of all sizes to crawl and even bump and sway together. Because the Feilaixia section was "chronically ill", Yinying Highway was long derided as "Qingyuan's worst road".

However, at the end of September last year, the main project of the Yinying Highway reconstruction was completed, ending the "dark history" of difficult travel for vehicles and pedestrians. Today, Yinying Highway is a four-lane road with picturesque scenery along the way, becoming a new favorite for self-drive tourists. Behind this change is Qingyuan's concentrated effort to eliminate "bad roads" and "poor roads" on national and provincial highways in the city. With nearly 5 billion yuan raised from central and provincial subsidies and local matching funds, the city completed the reconstruction of 1,001 kilometers of the 1,607 kilometers of national and provincial highways in the city over more than five years.

Transportation infrastructure construction must open up both major arteries and capillaries. Chen Hongyu, counselor of the Provincial Government and professor at the Provincial Party School, once pointed out that each city should pay attention to both expressway construction and ordinary road construction, open up dead-end roads, and make roads form a network. "We cannot focus only on trunk lines; provincial roads, county roads, and village roads on branch lines must also be considered. Otherwise, road connections will be poor, and the efficiency of trunk lines will be greatly reduced."

In fact, in terms of transportation infrastructure construction, cities in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong not only focus on "external connectivity" but also on "internal links", continuously improving the connection between expressway trunk roads and industrial parks and new urban areas, strengthening rapid transportation links between counties, towns, and central urban areas, promoting the connection of urban passenger transport lines with urban buses and town-village buses, and closely linking urban and rural areas. It can be said that the transportation in various cities in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong has shown a new pattern, and the transportation functions within the city have been greatly enhanced.

For example, since the beginning of this year, Shantou City and its districts have simultaneously launched the "black-topping" construction of roads in the central urban area, promoting the direct asphalt overlay of 493 municipal roads. The city has widened and reconstructed about 411 kilometers of roads, built 164 kilometers of new sidewalks, and built or reconstructed 9.04 kilometers of sewers, improving the urban road environment. After rectification, many "dead-end roads" and "bottleneck roads" in the central urban area, such as Lushan North Road, Jinhui West Road, and Bingang East Road, have been opened up.

"Wealth Flow": Forming a 2-Hour Economic Circle in the Province

According to statistics, the current high-speed railway density in Guangdong is 0.83 kilometers per 100 square kilometers, comparable to provinces with similar economic volumes such as Jiangsu, Shandong, and Zhejiang. At present, the skeleton network of high-speed and rapid railways in Guangdong has initially taken shape, but the three cities in western Guangdong and Heyuan and Meizhou in northern Guangdong have not yet opened high-speed railways.

In response, Guangdong plans to invest about 136 billion yuan from 2017 to 2020 to construct 11 high-speed railway projects, including Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Shanwei-Shantou, Shenzhen-Maoming, and Ganzhou-Shenzhen, with operating mileage reaching 2,000 kilometers, forming a "five vertical, two horizontal" high-speed railway backbone network, achieving high-speed rail in every city, and connecting with all neighboring provinces by high-speed rail.

The report of the 12th Guangdong Provincial Party Congress proposed to improve the transportation network connecting the Pearl River Delta with eastern, western, and northern Guangdong. "We must use fast and convenient transportation as a bond to more closely connect eastern, western, and northern Guangdong with the Pearl River Delta. We will advance the construction of high-speed and rapid transportation networks, further shorten the time-space distance between eastern, western, and northern Guangdong and the Pearl River Delta, and form a 2-hour economic circle in the province centered on the core cities of the Pearl River Delta."

Chen Zaiqi, deputy director of the Institute of Macroeconomic Research of the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, wrote that where roads are open, wealth flows. The significant improvement of transportation location conditions will undoubtedly bring good development opportunities to underdeveloped areas, shorten the time-space distance between eastern, western, and northern Guangdong and the Pearl River Delta, enhance transportation accessibility, promote the flow and accumulation of relevant economic factors to underdeveloped areas, and achieve accelerated economic revitalization and development.

Nanxiong, known as "the throat of north-south passage", is the northernmost county-level city in Guangdong, more than 300 kilometers from the provincial capital Guangzhou. It has been burdened with multiple inherent disadvantages: old revolutionary base, border area, poverty, and mountainous terrain, which have long constrained local development. However, with the opening of the Shaoguan-Ganzhou Expressway and railway, local transportation infrastructure has significantly improved, bringing new momentum to the local economy, and local industrial land prices have gradually increased from initially low or even zero land prices.

At the end of 2015, the Xinxing section of the Jiangmen-Luoding Expressway officially opened to traffic, fulfilling Yunfu Xinxing's dream of an expressway. At the end of last year, the entire Jiangmen-Luoding Expressway opened, shortening the drive from cities in western Pearl River Delta to Xinxing to within two hours, directly boosting Xinxing's tourism economy during the Spring Festival. From the first to the seventh day of the first lunar month in 2017, the Liuzu Hometown Tourist Resort received 130,894 vehicles, 5.1 times that of the same period last year; and received 326,500 visitors, 2.7 times that of the same period last year.