Avehicle tunnel will soon be built that will link Lujiazui in Pudong with Puxi and hopefully ease one of Shanghai's worst traffic-jam areas.
The tunnel-construction firm said yesterday that the passage would connect the Pudong end of Yan'an Road Tunnel, run under the Huangpu River and Jinqiao Road and come out in the Jinqiao Export Processing Zone.
The 7.8-kilometer end result will be called the East-West Passage Tunnel and will comprise a vast, inter-connected underground system.
Some roads in Lujiazui and nearby areas, as well as two other tunnels for vehicles that travel under the Huangpu River, would also be connected to the East-West Passage with entrance and exit ramps, said the Shanghai Tunnel Engineering Co Ltd, builder of the project.
Drivers heading for and leaving the Lujiazui area would enjoy many more choices, said Lin Qingquan, chief engineer of the project.
"We believe the future underground tunnel in Pudong will also free the Yan'an Road Tunnel from the terrible congestion in rush hours,'' Lin said yesterday.
Preparatory work for digging the tunnel began in February, including relocating residents living along the route and removing underground infrastructure pipes.
Two temporary ramps are being built beside the Pudong end of the Yan'an Road Tunnel. When completed, these ramps will be used by vehicles to enter and leave the Yan'an Road Tunnel from the Pudong side, while the opposite end will close for construction.
"A major step of the project is to connect the Pudong end of the tunnel at ground level with the future passage underground,'' Lin said.
Between the connection point with the Yan'an Road Tunnel and the end in the Jinqiao zone, the underground passage will have five exits and four entrances, linking it with major roads in Lujiazui and nearby areas in Pudong.
The Renmin Road Tunnel and the Xinjian Road Tunnel, both running under the Huangpu River, would receive renovations to their Pudong ends and be connected to the future passage, Lin said.
Yincheng Road, the core area of Lujiazui, Rongcheng Road, Taolin Road, Minsheng Road, Luoshan Road and Jinqiao Road will all be linked to the underground access after the ramps are built.
The Yan'an Road Tunnel services nearly 100,000 vehicles every day, causing serious traffic congestion.
Digging of the tunnel was scheduled to start at the end of this year but it was still uncertain whether the tunnel would be ready in time for 2010 World Expo, officials said.
Six stations and tracks for the planned Metro Line 14 would be built directly below the level of the underground vehicle tunnel, engineers said.
They said the East-West Passage Tunnel presented a major design problem as a future ramp on it leading to the core of Lujiazui would be only 1.5 meters from the tunnel shell of the Metro Line 2 underground passage.
"We are still studying different approaches on how to best tackle this challenge,'' Lin told Shanghai Daily.
