On January 30, the Hong'an Link of the Shanghai-Chengdu Expressway (Wuhan-Hong'an Expressway), invested and built by Hubei Communications Investment Group, officially began construction. Once completed and open to traffic, the project will further improve travel conditions in Hong'an County, strengthen the radiating and driving role of the Wuhan metropolitan area for Hong'an County, and promote in-depth development of the resource industries in this old revolutionary base area.
The Hong'an Link of the Shanghai-Chengdu Expressway (Wuhan-Hong'an Expressway) starts near Chentiantian on the west side of the New Industrial Park in Mi'ersi Town, Hong'an County, where it connects with the Shanghai-Chengdu Expressway. It passes Gaoqiao East and Wangjiawan, intersects with the Macheng-Ankang Expressway at Liujiabang, and ends at Yuntai Village in the urban area of Hong'an County, where it connects with the county's Fazhan Avenue. The entire line is a two-way four-lane expressway with a design speed of 100 kilometers per hour and a subgrade width of 26 meters. The project includes three interchange junctions (Mi'er West Hub Interchange, Hong'an South Hub Interchange, and Gaoqiao Interchange), one maintenance work area, two toll management stations, and other facilities. The route has a total length of about 27.7 kilometers.
As important "hard support" for building a key node in the domestic circulation and a strategic link between the domestic and international circulations, Hubei currently has a total expressway mileage of 7,230 kilometers, and the "nine vertical, five horizontal, three ring" expressway skeleton network has basically taken shape. At the end of last year, with the full opening of the Baoshen Expressway, Hubei achieved "expressways in every county," but this is not the end. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the province will strengthen hard connectivity in transportation, and transportation construction across the province will continue at full pace, with the focus on enabling numerous counties and county-level cities to have access to more than two expressways. In fact, Xiangyang and other places have already achieved access to more than two expressways in all counties (cities), while Hong'an already has the Mawu and Mazhu expressways. With the expressway that has just started construction, Hong'an will have access to three expressways during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.
It is understood that Hubei Province will ensure more than 100 billion yuan in fixed-asset investment in highways and waterways this year, including optimizing and expanding expressways and striving to complete 132 kilometers of expressways. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, a number of expressway connectors will also be built to open up transportation "dead-end roads" and connect more expressways into a network. Five years from now, the province's total expressway mileage will reach 8,000 kilometers, and more counties (cities) will have access to more than two expressways.