On February 28, under a light drizzle in Yingtaogou, Yunyang District, Shiyan City, the first phase of the reconstruction and expansion project of the Gucheng to Liupi section of the Fuyin Expressway, invested and constructed by Hubei Communications Investment Group, commenced. This project is the first mountainous expressway reconstruction and expansion project of Hubei's "15th Five-Year Plan." Upon completion, it will become Hubei's first expressway with ten lanes in both directions, injecting new momentum into the construction of a pivotal hub.
Pointing to the project schematic, Hu Min, deputy general manager of Hubei Communications Investment Yunchu Construction Company, introduced that the project spans 39.5 kilometers with a total investment of 8.537 billion yuan. The new parallel section from Liuliping to Liupi will be constructed to the standard of a six-lane expressway in both directions, with a design speed of 100 kilometers per hour. Upon completion, it will combine with the existing Fuyin Expressway to form a ten-lane expressway in both directions.
The new reconstruction and expansion project follows a curved path compared to the old road. Why was a detour designed? Hu Min explained that reconstructing and expanding mountainous expressways is very challenging. Since the existing Fuyin Expressway is surrounded by mountains, if a side-by-side widening design were adopted, it would require extremely long tunnels, prolonging the construction period. Therefore, the design route follows a path that curves around the mountain.
The Wuhan to Shiyan section of the Fuyin Expressway, which has been in operation for over 20 years, is a crucial artery of the national expressway network. With traffic volume now having multiplied, reconstruction and expansion are urgently needed. Hubei Province plans to implement the reconstruction and expansion project in phases. In January this year, the reconstruction and expansion project of the Xiaogan section of the Fuyin Expressway has already commenced.
"The Fuyin Expressway is a key corridor connecting Shiyan City to the Central Plains and providing access to the northwest. With the rapid development of the regional economy and society, the existing four lanes can no longer meet the growing traffic demand," said Fang Lizhi, deputy director of the Shiyan Municipal Transportation Bureau. Following the unified deployment of the Provincial Department of Transportation, a mechanism of "dedicated promotion, parallel tackling, and closed-loop tracking" has been established to dynamically manage and break through approval items one by one. To address the challenge of cultural relic approval, the task force adopted a "phased approval" strategy, which was key to advancing the project. He said the task force seized the construction "window period" to initiate the node project that passes under the Xi'an-Shiyan high-speed railway, which not only resolved conflicts with the intersecting project but also directly saved 200 million yuan in investment.
Chen Biao, chief engineer of the Provincial Department of Transportation, introduced that this project is a representative project in Hubei's "rail, water, road, and air" multimodal transport system construction and a key project for enhancing the capacity and quality of the national "two horizontal, two vertical" expressway main corridors. Accelerating the implementation of this project will further improve the traffic capacity and service level of Hubei's east-west national expressway corridor, strengthen transportation links between Shiyan City and the Xiangyang metropolitan area and the Wuhan metropolitan area, inject new transportation momentum into Hubei's efforts to accelerate the building of an important strategic pivot for the rise of central China, and is of great significance for implementing national strategies such as the Yangtze River Economic Belt.
