The road to happiness emerges from the Wumeng Mountains, piercing through mountains and crossing rivers to build a thoroughfare. On the morning of January 3, 2024, the Yunnan Zhaotong section of the G7611 Duxiang Expressway was completed and opened to traffic, marking a breakthrough in another major high-speed artery connecting the three provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, and Guizhou in southwestern China.

One road connects three provinces and links the great Southwest. The national expressway network G7611 from Duyun City, Guizhou Province to Shangri-La City, Yunnan Province (hereinafter referred to as the Duxiang Expressway) has a total length of 1,200 kilometers, passing from east to west through Guizhou Province, Zhaotong City of Yunnan Province, Sichuan Province, and Shangri-La City of Yunnan Province, horizontally connecting 10 national expressways including the Xiarong, Yinkun, Jingkun, and Hangrui expressways.

It is understood that after the opening of the Zhaotong section of the Duxiang Expressway, the travel time from Shouwang Township in Zhaotong, Yunnan to Chunjiang Township in Jinyang, Sichuan has been shortened from the original 6 hours to about 1 hour, effectively solving the travel problems of nearly 1.8787 million people in 10 townships along the route, promoting the coordinated development of the three provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, and Guizhou, and being of great significance for building the most attractive golden tourism route in the east-west direction of the southwestern region, injecting new momentum into Zhaotong's integration into the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle and the central Yunnan urban agglomeration.

Yang Chengxin, Deputy Secretary of the Zhaotong Municipal Party Committee and Mayor, stated that the completion of the Zhaotong section of the Duxiang Expressway has optimized the regional road network, amplified locational advantages, and improved the investment environment, and will surely lead Zhaotong to open up new prospects for opening to the outside world and inspire the entire city of Zhaotong to strive to write a new chapter of high-quality development.

According to Yang Chengxin, with the completion and opening of the Zhaotong section of the Duxiang Expressway, the expressway mileage of Zhaotong City has successfully exceeded 1,000 kilometers, the number of major corridors for Zhaotong to "exit Yunnan, enter Sichuan, and reach Guizhou" has reached 11, and the expressway has achieved a great leap from the "end" to the "frontier" in Yunnan Province, bringing Zhaotong one step closer to the goal of becoming a comprehensive transportation hub in the northeastern Yunnan region.

The Yunnan Zhaotong section of the Duxiang Expressway began substantive construction in January 2018, with a total length of 97 kilometers. It is the ** national expressway project in Yunnan Province organized and implemented by prefecture-level cities, built using the EPC (Engineering, Procurement, and Construction) model.

The project starts at Shouwang Township, Zhaoyang District, Zhaotong City, connecting with the Guizhou section of the Duxiang Expressway, passing through Zhaoyang District, Ludian County, and Qiaojia County, and ending at Chunjiang Township, Jinyang County, Sichuan Province, connecting with the Sichuan section of the Duxiang Expressway. It is built to a two-way four-lane standard, with a subgrade width of 25.5 meters, a design speed of 80 kilometers per hour, and an approved estimated budget of 18.692 billion yuan. The main line has 63 bridges and 16 tunnels, with 8 interchanges, 2 maintenance work areas, 2 service areas, 1 parking area, and 7 ramp toll stations. The first 40 kilometers, from Shouwang to the Ludian Longtoushan interchange section, was completed and opened to traffic on February 1, 2021.

According to Li Wenlong, Chairman of Zhaotong Expressway Investment and Development Co., Ltd., the last 57 kilometers of the Zhaotong section of the Duxiang Expressway concentrate all the controlling works of the Zhaotong section, including 7 tunnels and 5 bridges, with the bridge-tunnel ratio as high as 93%. The construction area is located in the Niulan River Grand Canyon and along the Jinsha River, in the Xiaojiang seismic fault zone, with high mountains, steep slopes, cliffs, and river crossings, narrow construction work surfaces, great construction difficulty, high in-situ stress, high environmental protection requirements, and complex and fragmented geology with frequent natural disasters. It is currently one of the expressways under construction in China with the most complex geological conditions, the greatest construction difficulty, the highest safety risks, the most uncertain factors, and the most arduous construction tasks.