Construction on a new highway connecting the Fujian provincial capital Fuzhou with nearby island city Pingtan is on schedule, with the road set to be open to traffic by the end of 2018, Pingtan’s municipal government announced on March 7.

Work on the 21-kilometer Changle-Pingtan Highway began in 2015. Once completed, it is expected to cut journey times between Fuzhou and Pingtan from 90 minutes to just one hour, providing a further boost to the island city’s burgeoning tourist industry.

The six-lane highway runs from Guhuai town in Changle, a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Fuzhou, which is connected to the Fuzhou Ring Expressway. The road will then thread through the towns of Jiangtian, Xuetian and Songxia before ending at the Pingtan Haixia Rail-Road Bridge, which crosses the Haitan Strait dividing Pingtan from the Chinese mainland.

Currently, residents in Fuzhou bound for Pingtan have to take the Fuzhou-Quanzhou Highway, the Yuxi-Pingtan Highway and the Haixia Bridge, which takes about 1.5 hours. However, the new 100 km/h highway is expected to cut journey times significantly.

The highway linking Changle and Pingtan is currently under construction and is expected to open to traffic by the end of 2018. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]