Beijing-Tianjin expressway opens for traffic

TIANJIN -- A new expressway linking the Olympic host city, Beijing, to its nearest co-host city, Tianjin, opened for traffic on Wednesday.

The dual four-lane intercity expressway is one of the key infrastructure projects for facilitating the Olympic traffic. It was designated for construction by the Ministry of Transport in 2006.

Dubbed as Beijing's offshore gateway, Tianjin is a collaborative host city for the Olympic soccer games.

The 135-km expressway links the national capital directly to the container port in Tianjin, whose throughput chalked up 7 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) in 2007. It makes possible for people in Tianjin to share Beijing's convenient air transport.

The two cities have been cooperating to integrate their road and rail networks in addressing the intercity travel, which had been affected by road congestion and slow rail service.

The expressway is the second fast road link after the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu expressway.

Besides highways, the newly built Beijing-Tianjin express railway was tested in June. It is scheduled to be in use by August, bjust ahead of the Games.

A bullet train ran at its maximum of 380 km per hour on the line in test runs, the fastest such service in the country. It shortens the intercity travel to 30 minutes.

Quake causes 58.3b loss in transport sector

BEIJING -- China's southwestern Sichuan Province suffered 58.3 billion yuan (8.3 billion US dollars) losses to its transportation sector in the May 12 earthquake, said the Ministry of Transport (MOT) on Wednesday.

The losses were mainly caused by Landslide, mudflow, flood and quake lake, said Chen shengying, deputy head of the MOT's road department.

Losses to national and provincial trunk roads hit 24 billion yuan,  while that to rural roads and highway came to 28.5 billion yuan and 4 billion yuan, respectively.

A total of 53,295 km of roads suffered damage by July 12, according to earlier statistics from the MOT.