The 70-kilometer-long Middle Ring Road, which will cost several billion yuan to build, will link a new elevated section of highway in the north, running above Wen-shui, Handan and Xiangyin roads, with a ground-level stretch of expressway to encircle downtown Pudong and Puxi, the Shanghai Municipal Engineering Administrative Bureau announced yesterday.

The new ring road will cross the Huangpu River at two points, but officials have still not decided whether to use bridges or tunnels to cross the river, according to Gu Weihua, chief of the bureau's development planning department.

"During the past decade, we have taken great effort to construct two ring roads of 150 kilometers and other thoroughfares like the Yan'an Elevated Road," Gu said. "But judging from the ever-worsening traffic congestion, we have to admit that the city's road network was not soundly created."

The city's traffic situation is going to get even worse over the next few years, said Gu, noting that the number of vehicles on local streets is expected to double by 2010.

Currently there are about 1.12 million vehicles in the city, and the average driving speed on the city's highways is only slightly more than half of the posted speed limit.

In addition to building a new ring road, the city also plans to widen the Inner Ring Road from four lanes to six lanes and build 13 new highways, but work on that project won't start until 2005 when northern and western sections of the new ring road open to traffic.

Bicycle and moped lanes on roads underneath the Inner Ring Road will be turned into car lanes in hopes of reducing congestion even further, said Gu.

Officials said they expect more than 20 percent of traffic on the current two ring roads to be transferred to the new eight-lane Middle Ring Road when the entire highway is open in 2007.

(eastday.com September 25, 2002)