The Zhuhai Special Economic Zone today is crisscrossed by an extensive transportation network of ever-growing convenience and comprising infrastructure developed over 40 years of urbanization.

A major step was to create a shortcut through a mountain. With two lanes each way, the two-passage 30-year-old Banzhang Mt Tunnel was often jammed with traffic until the June 23 opening of two additional dual-lane tunnels and China's longest slow-traffic channel. Gridlock between New Xiangzhou (Ningxi) and Gongbei was broken between the southern and northern areas of downtown Zhuhai.

The 1990 tunnel had originally solved a north-south roadway need, but the urgent east-west necessity was for the first bridge. A resident surnamed Cheng recalled that no road crossing linked the city's east and west wings when she came to work in Hongqi Town of Jinwan District after graduation in 1992. She had to take a ferry to cross the Niwanmen and Modaomen waterways and would be stranded overnight when there was a meeting downtown.

Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge [Photo by Li Jianshu / Zhuhai Daily]

That changed when the 3.1-km (1.9-mile) Zhuhai Bridge spanning the Modaomen Waterway was put into use in late 1993. As an extension today, construction of the Honghe Bridge is well underway to be ready for the 13th China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition (Airshow China) in November. Also, the initial box girder of the Jinhai Avenue Bridge -- the first combined highway-railway line above waters of the Pearl River Delta estuary and Hengqin's most important outbound transit hub -- was also recently erected.

Moreover, a sea-land-air transportation network took form in the city with remarkable progress as follows: The Guangzhou South-Zhuhai North section of the Guangzhou-Zhuhai Intercity MRT opened in 2011, the cargo throughput of Gaolan Port exceeded 100 million tons in 2017, and passenger throughput of Zhuhai (Jinwan) Airport exceeded 10 million in 2018.

Noticeably, the opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge in 2018 made Zhuhai the only Chinese mainland city connected directly to both Hong Kong and Macao by roadway.

Transport between Zhuhai and other Bay Area cities is being further improved with building of the Lingding Sea Channel (highway-railway Shenzhen-Zhuhai Link), Guangzhou-Jiangmen-Zhuhai-Macao and Guangzhou-Zhongshan-Zhuhai-Macao high-speed railways, and extension of Guangzhou's Metro Line 18. Construction of the Huangmao Sea Channel Bridge between southwest Zhuhai and southeast Jiangmen will also be accelerated.