Trip : HANGZHOU BAY BRIDGE - World's longest sea-crossing BRIDGE - October 2007

[Patrick]

Hangzhou Bay Bridge - World's longest sea-crossing bridge connecting Ningbo to Shanghai

The Hangzhou Bay Bridge is linking both sides of the Hangzhou Bay.
The bridge is 36 kilometers long and it is actually the longest sea-crossing bridge in the world !
It has six lanes in both directions and shortens the distance between Shanghai and Ningbo by 120 km.

It had been a while I decided to have a look at this bridge but was not exactly sure about its location.
I thought "Well doesn't matter we will try to find it, shouldn't be that difficult !"
Well in fact it hadn't been that easy as the highway leading there is still under construction.
But driving on the country roads gave us another vision...

The bridge starts at Cixi, about 80 kms North East from Ningbo city and ends in Jiaxing near Shanghai...


We went through some country roads as the highway leading there is still under construction...


Quite surprising ! Crossing villages we saw a lot of Christian crosses on houses and several huge churches !


Is that the Hangzhou Bay Bridge ? Huuuummm seems a bit short for the longest sea-crossing bridge...


First sign indicating the Hangzhou Bay Bridge (Hangzhou Wan Da Qiao) and a huge poster...We shouldn't be far....


Now we can see the huge highway crossing the landscape. So let's see what's over there...


These are the toll gates still under construction but the main job is done...
Let's go inside to have a look...Anyway for now it's still free...


After a few hundred meters inside, we can see that this highway definitely leads to the bridge then to Shanghai...


We had to go back and try following the highway in order to find out where the bridge starts...


Here we are ! This is the end of the road, after that the sea. Let's get out of the car and walk a bit...


We can see the bridge going deep in the sea. These 2 hovercrafts allow tourists to approach the bridge...
There is a 40 minutes ride for RMB70. You can watch a great DVD showing the different steps of construction...


Date of opening to public hasn't been confirmed...Should not be at least before mid-2008...
The Hangzhou Bay Bridge will shorten the ground transportation distance from Ningbo to Shanghai by 120km.
Travel time will be reduced from 4 hours to 2 hours. That's really great !


Tip : Until the Hang-Yong Expressway going to Hangzhou has an exit officially opened, the most convenient way to go there is to use the G329 National Way

More info about the bridge here : Hangzhou Bay Bridge

Other information about the bridge here : Hangzhou Bay Bridge