New signs for five highways that connect the city with neighboring Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces will all be in place by the end of this month, according to the Shanghai Municipal Engineering Administration Bureau, whose aim is to make Shanghai look more like an international metropolis.

Signs on the longer inter-province expressways will carry both a number and the Chinese characters representing their old names.

Yingbin Boulevard, which connects the downtown with Pudong International Airport, was the first to be renamed, and is now known as the A1.

The number of "A" highways will grow to 15 by the time the city's expressway system grows from its present 150 kilometers to 650 kilometers under city government's five-year plan for 2001-2005.

Earlier, directional signs were erected along Yan'an Elevated Road and the other downtown thoroughfares that feed into the suburban highways.

Cao Jianfan, a senior engineer with Shanghai Mapping Institute, urges motorists to throw out their old maps and buy new ones that reflect the name changes. Heinz Munder, a German who works in Shanghai, wishes he'd heard the advice earlier.

"One day several weeks ago, I was driving along the Yan'an Elevated Road toward Hangzhou, and I noticed signboards pointing to the A8 Expressway. But I had no idea where such a road went because my map didn't show it," he said.

(Eastday.com 09/04/2001)