Recently, the "main artery" of high-speed rail across the east and west of China has a new action.
The preliminary design of the new Hefei-Wuhan high-speed railway (hereinafter referred to as the "Hewu high-speed railway") has been approved a few days ago, and it is planned to officially start construction at the end of December. The Hewu high-speed railway is a key section of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway (hereinafter referred to as the "Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway") connecting the east and the west, and its construction marks the beginning of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway into a period of comprehensive accelerated construction.
The Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway starts from Shanghai, passes through Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei and Chongqing, and ends at Chengdu Station in Sichuan, running through 4 provinces and 2 cities, with a total length of about 2,100 kilometers, and is expected to be fully completed by 2030.
Schematic diagram of the horizontal and longitudinal section of the new Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway line. Figure: Hubei released its official WeChat***
After completion, the Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway will replace the original Shanghai-Hanrong fast passenger transport channel, as a large channel along the Yangtze River that runs through the east and west in China, connecting 11 provinces (cities) in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and becoming the main backbone of the comprehensive three-dimensional transportation system in the Yangtze River basin and one of the main arteries of the national "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed rail network.
Zhou Jiang, director of the Yangtze River Economic Belt Research Committee of the China Association for Regional Science and president of the Sichuan Regional Science Society, mentioned in an interview with China News Weekly that the Yangtze River Economic Belt, as one of China's economic centers, has the characteristics of convenient transportation, dense cities, strong industrial foundation and outstanding resource advantages, and carries important national strategic tasks.
At the same time, Zhou Jiang pointed out that despite the rapid development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, it is also facing problems such as uneven distribution of resources, environmental pollution, and unbalanced urban-rural development, and the construction of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway can improve the transportation convenience and efficiency in the region, promote economic growth in the basin, and achieve balanced regional development.
After the completion of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway, the operating mileage from Shanghai to Chengdu and Shanghai to Chongqing is expected to be shortened to 1,875 kilometers and 1,594 kilometers respectively, and the travel time will be reduced from the current 122 hours, 107 hours reduced to 67 hours, 53 hours.
It forms complementary advantages with ** waterways
The Yangtze River Economic Belt spans three major regions in China, covering 11 provinces (municipalities) including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Chongqing, Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou, with an area of about 205230,000 square kilometers, accounting for about 21 of the country's area4%。
Zhou Jiang told China News Weekly that the GDP of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in 2022 will be 559766 billion yuan, an increase of 30%, with more than 40% of the country's population and GDP.
In the impression of many people, there seems to be a "high-speed rail" channel across the Yangtze River Economic Belt.
The Shanghai-Hanrong Express Passenger Channel, which has been open to traffic for several years, starts from Shanghai, passes through Nanjing, Hefei, Wuhan, Chongqing and other cities, and ends in Chengdu.
However, Zhao Yixin, president of the transportation branch of the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, told China News Weekly that the original Shanghai-Hanrong express passenger transport corridor is difficult to give full play to the technical and economic advantages of the railway and the overall capacity of the channel due to the different technical standards of different road sections, and the support for the implementation of the development strategy of the Yangtze River Economic Belt is insufficient, and the shortcomings in the comprehensive transportation system along the Yangtze River are obvious.
It is understood that the design speed of the existing Shanghai-Hanrong railway is only 350 kilometers per hour for the section from Shanghai to Nanjing and Chongqing to Chengdu, the speed of Nanjing-Hefei-Wuhan-Yichang, and Lichuan-Chongqing is 200 250 kilometers per hour, and the speed of Yichang-Lichuan is only 160 kilometers per hour.
Currently, the travel time from Chengdu to Shanghai is 122 hours. After the completion of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway, the time from Chengdu to Shanghai will be shortened to 67 hours. Therefore, in the eyes of many respondents, this is the "main artery" of China's east-west railway in the true sense.
Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway construction site. Photo by Zhong Xinwang from China News Service.
Jia Ruoxiang, director of the Comprehensive Research Office of the National Institute of Land Development and Regional Economy, pointed out in an interview with China News Weekly that the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt needs to promote the construction of a comprehensive three-dimensional transportation corridor, and the Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway, as a key support, is particularly important.
He said that the Yangtze River Economic Belt involves many provinces and a large regional area, and the economic and social development between the upstream, middle and lower reaches is unbalanced. The downstream Yangtze River Delta region is economically developed, and its development level is significantly higher than that of the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River Delta, and there is a certain regional development gradient difference.
Jia Ruoxiang believes that shortening the time distance between the regions of the Yangtze River Economic Belt will enhance the radiation and driving capacity of the downstream areas to the middle and upper reaches of the region, and at the same time promote the innovation chain in the Yangtze River Delta region and the industrial chain in the central and western regions to be more closely linked, so as to promote the coordinated development of relevant urban agglomerations in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. For example, he said that some industries that are more mature in the Yangtze River Delta region, such as textile and garment, food processing and electronic information assembly and other related industries, can achieve gradient transfer between regions with the continuous improvement of the high-speed rail fast track, promote the improvement and upgrading of the industrial chain and the first chain, and promote high-quality development by tracing the river.
Zhou Jiang said that by improving the conditions of transportation infrastructure, resources can be more evenly distributed in different areas of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, reducing the problem of unbalanced regional development. In addition, it can also promote the effective docking of the Chengdu-Chongqing Twin-City Economic Circle in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River with the more economically developed Yangtze River Delta region, and quickly integrate into the dual circulation pattern.
Ye Qing, former deputy director of the Hubei Provincial Bureau of Statistics, told China News Weekly that a high-speed rail line means a ** economic belt. Each station along the high-speed rail line can become a new economic growth point. The dozens of cities connected by the Shanghai-Hanrong high-speed railway will radiate and drive the development of small and medium-sized cities and towns along the railway, thereby effectively promoting the coordinated development of the three major urban agglomerations and accelerating the integrated development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.
The construction of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway can not only promote the economic development of the region, but also improve the efficiency of passenger and freight transportation in the region.
Yang Hao, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University's School of Transportation and Transportation, told China News Weekly that in the past, the circulation of production factors was mainly in the north-south direction, and for the western region, the demand for passenger and freight transportation was not high. The Shanghai-Hanrong Express Passenger Corridor has reserved freight conditions, but due to the differences in technical conditions, it is difficult to be compatible with passengers and cargo, and can only be used exclusively for passenger transport.
Yang Hao believes that with the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, the current east-west transportation corridor along the Yangtze River is difficult to meet the development needs of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, so it is necessary to re-plan the functional layout of the railway network, restore the freight function of the old line through technological transformation, and build the Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway to meet the future passenger demand.
In 2022, the Yangtze River trunk port will complete a cargo throughput of 35900 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 17%。Niu Fengrui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told China News Weekly that the north-south width along the Yangtze River is large, and in addition to the first-class waterway, other modes of transportation in the east-west direction are needed to supplement and optimize. He believes that the construction of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway is very important for the encryption and optimization of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the entire Chinese high-speed rail network, and can complement the Yangtze River waterway.
In response to many netizens who have questioned why a new railway needs to be built instead of increasing the speed on the basis of the original railway, Zhao Yixin explained that the existing railway is designed to run at different speeds, with some places being 160 kilometers per hour and others being 250 kilometers per hour, and not all sections can be increased to 350 kilometers per hour due to terrain conditions and technology.
However, he also mentioned that not all sections of the road are rebuilt, "what can be retained has been retained as much as possible, but the proportion is small, and most of them still need to be rebuilt."
Achieve dislocation development
For Zhang Rui, a Chongqing girl who works as an art collector in Shanghai, the construction of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway has changed the layout of her career. She has been hesitant to buy an office in Shanghai due to the demands of her work, which often requires her clients to travel from Chongqing to Shanghai for events, but once the Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway opens, it will only take 5 to travel from Chongqing to Shanghai3 hours, she thought it would help her develop her career better, so she decided to shift part of her focus to Shanghai.
However, not everyone is optimistic. Liu Kai, who works in small commodities in Tianmen City, Hubei Province, told China News Weekly that because the economy of his city is not large, he is worried that the Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway will make more and more young people in his hometown choose to go out to work.
The Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway connects 19 cities including Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing, Hefei, Wuhan, Chongqing and Chengdu. Zhou Jiang said that among these cities, there are 8 cities with a GDP of more than 1 trillion yuan in 2022, such as 447 trillion yuan, Suzhou is 24 trillion yuan, Chongqing is 29 trillion yuan, Chengdu exceeded 21 trillion yuan, similarly, there are cities with a GDP of less than 100 billion yuan, such as Ziyang City in Sichuan with 948200 million yuan, Tianmen City in Hubei is only 7300.5 billion yuan.
Zhou Jiang believes that the Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway means more economic exchanges and development opportunities for cities such as Shanghai, Suzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Nantong, Nanjing, Hefei and Wuhan. For cities with relatively small economies, such as Lu'an, Tianmen, Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture and Ziyang City, while further facilitating the circulation of resource elements and the flow of talents, it may also exacerbate the "siphon effect" of some cities, that is, the flow of resources and talents from such cities to larger cities may be accelerated, exacerbating the unbalanced development in the region.
In Niu Fengrui's view, urbanization itself has a polarization effect, and only the agglomeration of population, industry and capital can achieve higher factor allocation efficiency. He believes that this kind of agglomeration effect and scale effect will have more advantages than disadvantages for the country's overall comprehensive economic strength and regional development.
However, Niu Fengrui also mentioned that although for some areas under the "siphon effect", it may not all be good at present, but with the development of the central urban area, its benefits will spill over to surrounding cities and regions, and the overall development will still tend to be balanced.
He further explained that the current regional barriers mainly include the obstruction of the flow of factors caused by the dual system of urban and rural areas, and the administrative division barriers caused by the improper allocation of resources by administrative means. He said, "We need to build a unified national market, and in order to realize the allocation of factor resources through market mechanisms, we must break down these regional barriers." ”
For those smaller cities, Zhou Jiang believes that such cities can be based on their own characteristics, through the cultivation of characteristic industries to achieve dislocation development, and avoid direct competition with large cities. It is also possible to form industrial synergies with large cities and jointly develop regional markets and realize resource sharing. In addition, he believes that paying attention to green construction and environmental protection and improving the livability of cities are also feasible development paths for small and medium-sized cities.
Since the construction of high-speed rail involves the construction of some new stations, Zhao Yixin believes that in the new lines, the setting of stations in the city should pay more attention to the integration with the city, "the station should no longer be set away from the city center as in the past, which is not conducive to the interaction between the city and the high-speed rail."
Author: Chen Shulian.
Editor: Sun Xiaobo.