Chinanews, Beijing, Oct. 10 – Taking Beijing and Tianjin as the center cities, Beijing intends to build a large transportation network by which all other cities located no more than 500 kilometers away from Beijing and Tianjin can be reached within three hours by land transport.
This is included as one of the important tasks in Beijing’s infrastructure building over the next five years.
The Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission on Sunday announced the Beijing City Infrastructure Development Program for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan Period. In the program, it is said that during the eleventh five-year period, Beijing will build a second expressway to Tianjin, and a new expressway to Chengde. By doing so, Beijing hopes to put in place a large transportation network connecting all cities near the Bohai Bay area. The network will take Beijing as the center, and connect the major cities in the area such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang and Qinhuangdao. By then, traveling from Beijing to Tianjin will take less than 30 minutes.
It is also said in the program that over the next five years, Beijing will develop the Caofeidian port area, improve the ocean transportation coordinating system in Tianjin port, Beijing-Tangshan port, Qinhuangdao port, and Huanghua port, which are considered as the major ports in the Bohai Bay area. Through this work, it is hoped that all major cities located within the 500 kilometers distance from Beijing and Tianjin can be reached in less than three hours by land transportation.
In order to meet the growing demand for air transport, Beijing will initiate a project on the construction of the second capital international airport and finish the related preparation work during the eleventh five-year period. As for the site of the second capital international airport, which is of wide public concerned, it is not mentioned in the program. However, it is said that construction of the second capital international airport will improve the air transport in the Bohai Bay area as a whole and the resource allocation will cover Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province.
