If you want to talk about which infrastructure company is better, if China is ranked second, I believe no country in the world dares to be ranked first. After all, China's reputation as the "infrastructure maniac" is not a big deal. From home to abroad, China's infrastructure can be seen everywhere. China's love for infrastructure is probably unresolved by Westerners.
For example, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge , which was built in my country for hundreds of billions of yuan, was called a "face project", but after the construction was completed, it "no one passed", which was a loss-making transaction. But is this really the case? What is the real meaning of building the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge?
"burning money" Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge
Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is a bridge in China connecting Hong Kong, Macao and Zhuhai. It started construction on on December 15, 2009 and was not officially put into operation until October 24, 2018. has gone through nine years of storms and storms, and spent 112.69 billion yuan on , and the bridge was completed.
It can be said that the hardworking Chinese people have put in great effort to build it, so it is also known as one of the seven wonders of the world in . So, why can the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge "win this honor"? That has to start with its construction difficulty.
The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge starts from an artificial island at the Hong Kong port, crosses the southern Lingdingyang waters in the middle and ends at the Zhuhai Hongwan Interchange. The entire bridge is 55 kilometers long, but it incorporates a variety of bridge design technologies, making the construction difficult unprecedented. Therefore, it is also the cross-sea bridge in the world with the longest span, the longest steel structure bridge body and the longest subsea immersed tube tunnel in .
To talk about how difficult the construction is, first of all, the first thing to overcome is the environment and terrain of . Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is located in Lingdingyang, where there is the most complex marine environment in , which also means that higher requirements are put forward for the corrosion resistance of the bridge body. Especially on such a large-scale cross-sea bridge connecting the three places, this is not a simple problem for engineers.
So in the early stage of construction, on the design and material selection of bridges, engineers must conduct repeated thinking and testing to find the most corrosion-resistant material of . At the same time, the bridge deck must have strong compressive resistance , which is for the safety of passing vehicles, and on the other hand, it is for the longevity of the bridge. And this is another serious challenge for engineers.
Secondly, it is the technical difficulties encountered in building undersea tunnel . The original intention of building the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge was to connect the transportation of the three places and promote economic and trade exchanges between the three places. Therefore, according to custom, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge must meet the navigation capacity of 300,000 tons of cruise ships.
. After measurement, meeting this condition also means that the height of the bridge tower must reach 200 meters . However, the height limit of on the Lantau airport channel is only 120 meters, and it is obviously not feasible to use ordinary bridge design schemes in . After considering all aspects of the bridge engineer, it was finally decided to build an undersea tunnel through to solve the problem of height limit . Although
undersea tunnel is the best choice, it is not easy to implement. The first step in the construction of
is to find an island that can connect the bridge to the undersea tunnel. The engineers found that there were no islands available between the three places, so they had to design an artificial island, , to assume the role of the hub.
And another headache point is that the size of the artificial island of must be controlled within one kilometer. If exceeds this size, it may block the flow of mud and sand into the ocean and accumulate to form the impact plain. If the Lingdingyang becomes the impact plain, the consequences will be unimaginable. Therefore, in order to solve this problem, the engineer decided to use the technology of building an immersive tube tunnel to build a bridge after discussion.
In other words, you need to make a section of tunnel pipe sections in advance in the water, and then connect these pipe sections to form a complete tunnel, and the most difficult one is its docking process.You should know that the water flow at the bottom of Lingdingyang is not stable, and these tunnel pipe sections need to dock in such an extreme environment of , and the error of docking cannot exceed 2 cm, which is equivalent to the thickness of a coin. Such accurate operations as
are a huge challenge for construction workers, and any error may cause all the efforts of the entire project to be wasted. Therefore, the completion of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge can be said to be a hard work existence, and it is well deserved to be a "miracle" by the outside world.
However, after the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge was officially put into operation, it faced a dilemma, that is, this "money-burning" bridge has been in a state of "loss". It is logical that the toll collected by every year after it is put into operation is enough to resist the invested funds. So why is there a saying of "loss"?
The reason behind the "loss"
The main reason is that the traffic on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is low. According to relevant data, the traffic volume on the first day of the opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge was about ,000 times, and , and the average toll charged for each car was ,150 yuan . You can get .45 million yuan in in one day. According to this standard, you will earn .16 billion yuan in in a year. This profit is not enough to invest a fraction of the capital, let alone make a profit.
Some people may ask, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge connects the transportation of the three places, which is convenient for people to travel. After is opened to traffic, it can greatly reduce the commuting of two or three minutes. Why are people not "happy" to get on the bridge in ? In fact, it is not that people don’t want to, but that they are limited by conditions.
Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge connects the mainland and Hong Kong and Macao, and there are different policy requirements between the three places. So, if a car wants to get on the bridge, first you must have the license plate of and two places. , the license plate of , is the voucher for whether you can get on the bridge. However, it is not easy to get a two-place license plate.
The first condition is that must open a company, and the second condition of is that the company must meet the taxes of exceed 1 million within three years. can not get the license plates of the two places without meeting these two conditions. In the meantime, it also needs to go through the cumbersome review process of . After a period of time, can only be qualified to go to the bridge. These two conditions alone have stumped a lot of people, not to mention that it takes so long to review. If there is an urgent matter, who is willing to spend this time waiting for a license plate for two places?
In addition, since the traffic rules of in Hong Kong and Macau are different from those inland, even the lanes to drive are the opposite. Therefore, many mainlanders find it troublesome and unaccustomed to it, so they gradually reduce the habits of Hong Kong and Macao before driving. is also an important reason for the "empty" of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.
The high operating costs of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge are still increasing every year, and the "losses" are also in progress. Seeing this, someone must ask, since is "unpassed", why does it cost hundreds of billions to build a bridge of "loss"? What is China’s real intention to build the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge? Is it really the so-called “face-saving project” as the US media said?
The significance of building the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge
Indeed, In the short term, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is not profitable, And at a certain level, the high operating and maintenance costs have been increasing. In the eyes of all Americans who aim for interests, China's construction of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is indeed a "lose transaction". However, the significance of the existence of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is far from as simple as the small profit in front of you. Its value is more invisible and invisible to the outside world.
Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge has made the distance between the three places closer and more frequent economic and trade exchanges between the mainland and Hong Kong and Macao. Its significance is to prove China's strength to the whole world and an important witness to the "cross-strait relations are one family". Therefore, we must look at the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge from a development perspective. We believe that in the future it will drive the economic and cultural development of the three places and make China stronger!
Reference:
Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge: One bridge connects three places, reaching tens of millions of homes Guangming.com
Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is opening to traffic for 3 years. How is its operation? Latest data released by Southern Metropolis Daily Yang Liang Zhao Yuqi
Author: Chifanla Xiaozheng Proofreader: Chuanchuan
