Underground Utility Tunnels Free the City from "Spider Webs": 11 Utility Tunnels Under Construction in Changsha
2016-11-02
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Only a ventilation shaft remains on the surface while all utility lines run underground, bidding farewell to the dense "spider webs" across the city... All of this is about to become reality in Changsha. With only a few days left before the Housing Expo opens, the reporter visited the Engineering Department of Changsha CSCEC City Investment Utility Tunnel Construction Investment Co., Ltd. to learn about the construction of urban underground utility tunnels. At the construction sites in the Changsha High-Speed Rail New City area and on Xiangfu West Road in the old city area, excavators were working intensively, and the nearly three-meter-deep underground passage was gradually taking shape. "According to our design, a small car can drive through the underground utility tunnel without any problem," said Hu Junjie, manager of the engineering department, proudly when discussing the scale of the tunnel.
All Utility Lines to Run Underground, Making the City More Orderly
Hu Junjie explained that once the underground utility tunnel is completed, all urban lines will be moved from above ground to underground. "It is built directly beneath the main urban roads, with about 1.5 meters of cover soil above; the only thing exposed on the surface is a ventilation shaft, so traffic will basically not be affected."
In a schematic cross-section of the utility tunnel, the reporter saw that the tunnel clearly separates urban power cables, weak-current cables, high-voltage cables, gas, groundwater, tap water, communications, and national defense military cables, with each compartment performing its own function without interfering with the others. "It is equivalent to integrating all urban utility lines at once, which makes maintenance and adjustment more convenient," Hu Junjie said. "If a line breaks down in the future, we can check the monitoring center to see where the problem is and send maintenance personnel in through the nearest entrance, which saves a lot of time. At the same time, it ends the era of repeatedly digging up and patching roads to repair pipelines."
Hu Junjie said that by the end of this year, some 110 kV and 220 kV high-voltage trunk cables will enter the utility tunnel. The completion of the underground utility tunnel will completely free the city from the intricate "spider web" of cables. "You won't even see utility poles anymore. First, it improves the city's image, making it cleaner, tidier, and more orderly; second, it is of great significance for improving urban land use efficiency and enhancing land value. When buying a house, for example, we certainly don't want many power lines next to it."
11 Underground Utility Tunnels Under Construction in Changsha, Totaling 42.69 Kilometers
It is not just the one before our eyes. In fact, Changsha has long made arrangements for the construction of urban underground utility tunnels. The Changsha underground utility tunnel pilot construction PPP project currently under construction is among the first batch of national underground utility tunnel pilot construction projects. The project is concentrated in the Changsha High-Speed Rail New City area and on Xiangfu West Road in the old city area, including 11 utility tunnels and related control centers, with a total length of about 42.69 kilometers.
By the end of 2017, Changsha plans to build 18 utility tunnels totaling 62.62 kilometers and 3 control centers in the High-Speed Rail New City, Xiangfu Road, and Xiangjiang New Area, with an estimated investment of about 5.6 billion yuan. "In our planning, we reserved space for the next 100 years of development to ensure long-term use."
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