Construction to widen the local section of the Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway (A11) will start next year, city officials said yesterday.

With a total investment of nearly 100 million yuan (US$12 million), the city plans to double the width of the current four-lane expressway by the end of next year, they said.

The project is expected to reduce congestion along the 275-kilometer expressway, most of which is in Jiangsu Province.

The local portion of the expressway is just over 20 kilometers long. The section in Jiangsu has already been expanded to eight lanes.

"During the period of construction, we will encourage more cargo trucks to take other ground roads such as the suburban ring road (A30)," said Wu Juhui of the Shanghai Highway Administrative Office.

According to Zhao Hanqing, a manager of a local long-distance station, it takes more than seven hours to drive from Shanghai to Nanjing during the peak seasons such as the tomb sweeping season in April - compared to four hours normally.

"The longest traffic jam that I have even seen was more than 3 kilometers," he said.

During the next five years, the Jiangsu Province government is planning to construct another Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway which has six lanes.

(Shanghai Daily December 29, 2005)