On May 31, a reporter learned from China Energy Engineering Corporation's Gezhouba Group that the Yanchang-Huanglong Expressway in Shaanxi (hereinafter referred to as "Yanhuang Expressway") is about to open to traffic, and the project construction has now entered its final stage.

The Yanhuang Expressway is located in the eastern part of Yan'an City, Shaanxi Province, and is an important section of the national expressway Yulin-Lantian Line (G65E). The project is a PPP operational highway introduced by Shaanxi Province and invested in and constructed by China Energy Engineering Corporation's Gezhouba Group. The route starts at Yuekou Village in Yanchang County, connects with the Yan'an-Yanchuan Expressway, passes through four counties and districts—Yanchang County, Baota District, Yichuan County, and Huanglong County—and connects with the Huanglong-Pucheng Expressway. The designed construction mileage of the project is 149.468 kilometers in total length, with a bridge-tunnel ratio of 38.3%, and an approved estimated total investment of 17.506 billion yuan.

At the construction site, the reporter saw the broad expressway winding through the loess ridges and gullies. Construction workers along the route were racing against time, cleaning some road surfaces, while final work such as the installation of guardrails and sound barriers and roadside landscaping was also proceeding in an orderly manner.

According to Wang Feng, chief engineer of Shaanxi Gezhouba Yanhuang Ningshi Expressway Co., Ltd., the Yanhuang Expressway project has a long route and complex terrain and geology. It passes through oil and gas areas, the loess ridge and gully landform area of the Northern Shaanxi Loess Plateau, and the Brown Eared Pheasant National Nature Reserve. The relevant units rationally laid out the route alignment and main control points, and in accordance with the requirements for green highway construction, minimized mountain excavation and land acquisition and demolition, reduced the scale of tunnels within the Brown Eared Pheasant National Nature Reserve, reasonably lowered the subgrade fill height of some sections, strengthened the allocation and comprehensive utilization of earth and stone along the route, and optimized the comprehensive drainage system in light of local climate conditions, thereby protecting the environment to the greatest extent possible.

During construction, the Yanhuang project established a complete quality management responsibility system and a project information management platform, achieving full-cycle management of project quality through source control, process monitoring, and terminal evaluation. In successive physical engineering tests conducted by the Quality Supervision Station of the Shaanxi Provincial Department of Transport, the test results were all good.

Wu Changjiang, deputy general manager of Shaanxi Gezhouba Yanhuang Ningshi Expressway Co., Ltd., said that after the project is completed and opened to traffic, the national expressway Yulin-Lantian Line and the Qingdao-Lanzhou Line will achieve rapid interconnection, further improving the layout of the regional national expressway network, strengthening communication and links between Northern Shaanxi and the Guanzhong region, alleviating traffic pressure on the Baotou-Maoming Expressway, and providing a new high-speed corridor for Northern Shaanxi's energy resources to "go south and east."

At the same time, as a key construction project in Shaanxi Province, the Yanhuang Expressway will incorporate Yanchang County and Huanglong County into the national expressway network, raise the level of equalization of basic public transport in southeastern Yan'an, coordinate balanced and orderly regional economic development, accelerate the development and conversion of advantageous resources along the route, and provide strong transport support for the implementation of national strategies such as the revitalization of the Yan'an old revolutionary base area and the new round of large-scale development of the western region.