The expressway is an inevitable product of the development of the transport network and one of the key indicators of the modernization of a country or region. Zou Jiahua, the then state councilor, pointed out that the expressway was not a question of whether to develop, but a commitment to develop. The development of expressways must be focused not only on today, but also on the future.

In December 1978, poet Shao Yanxiang published a poem China's Cars Calling Highways. He used his artistic brushstrokes to reflect hundreds of millions of Chinese people's eagerness for highways. After the reform and opening up, with the rapid development of the national economy, highway and cargo transportation traffic increased drastically, but the main arterial roads suffered serious traffic jams, which severely restricted social and economic development.