At 10:30 on July 1, as the last truckload of concrete was slowly poured into the transverse joint, the Zhijue River Grand Bridge spanning Shaanxi and Gansu provinces was successfully closed, offering a gift for the 99th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.


　　The Zhijue River Grand Bridge is one of the key control projects of the Qiaopotou (Shaanxi-Gansu border) to Xunyi Expressway, located at the project's starting point connecting with the Gansu Tianluo Expressway. The bridge has a total length of 1,458 meters and a maximum height of 185 meters. The superstructure of the main bridge adopts prestressed concrete continuous rigid frame, and the substructure adopts single-leg and double-leg thin-walled hollow piers and group pile foundations. Among them, the tallest main pier of the bridge reaches 175 meters, currently the tallest main pier of its kind under construction in China. After the bridge opens to traffic, it will take only half an hour to travel from Xunyi, Shaanxi to Zhengning, Gansu, 2 hours faster than taking the national highway. It is of great significance for opening up a major provincial passage out of Shaanxi and boosting poverty alleviation in the Shaanxi-Gansu revolutionary old areas.

　　Since the successful pouring of the first pile foundation of the Zhijue River Grand Bridge on December 25, 2017, it has taken 887 days to complete the full-width closure. As a control bridge project of the Xunyi to Shaanxi-Gansu border project, the Zhijue River Grand Bridge has a complex structure and technology, high quality requirements, and great construction difficulty. All builders, adhering to the craftsman spirit and carrying forward the revolutionary spirit of the Shaanxi-Gansu old areas of "unity and struggle, courage to sacrifice, and unwavering commitment," fought against extreme heat and severe cold, overcame unfavorable factors such as interruption of local material supply, environmental protection campaigns, and the COVID-19 pandemic, and achieved decisive victories including the capping of the tallest main pier in the same year it started construction, the early closure of the left span, and the closure of the entire bridge, laying a solid foundation for the project to meet traffic conditions by the end of September.

　　The Xunyi to Shaanxi-Gansu border expressway starts at the Shaanxi-Gansu border and ends at Xunyi, Xianyang, with a total length of 24.939 kilometers, adopting the four-lane expressway standard. As a key construction project in the province's 13th Five-Year Plan, it has cumulatively completed a construction investment of 2.368 billion yuan, accounting for 94% of the total investment, and the physical progress has reached 89%. The completion and opening of this project are of great significance for thoroughly implementing the national development strategy of the "Belt and Road" in the western development, improving the national and Shaanxi provincial expressway networks, improving regional traffic conditions, and promoting the development of red tourism, cultural landscapes, and coal and other resources in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia revolutionary old areas as well as coordinated economic and social development.