On the 12th, the Longtan River Crossing, in whose design the institute participated, officially began construction in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province.
The Longtan River Crossing is located at the boundary between the Nanjing and Zhenyang sections of the Yangtze River, connecting Yizheng City of Yangzhou on the north bank and Nanjing and Jurong City of Zhenjiang on the south bank. It is about 16.8 kilometers from the Fourth Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge upstream and about 28.6 kilometers from the Runyang Bridge downstream.


The project is being built to the standard of a two-way, six-lane expressway with a design speed of 100 kilometers per hour. The main bridge across the river adopts a steel box girder suspension bridge with a main span of 1,560 meters, crossing the river in a single span, ranking among the top in span scale among domestic bridges; the approach bridges adopt prestressed concrete girder bridges.
Zhang Min, general manager of China Railway Major Bridge Reconnaissance & Design Institute, introduced that the cross-river and bank connection conditions of the Longtan River Crossing are complex, involving multiple ecological protection zones, mining areas, and military units. It is the most complex route and has the highest bridge-tunnel ratio among the expressways already built in Jiangsu, with high environmental protection requirements, and BIM technology and green management methods are applied throughout the construction process.

At the same time, the design of the Longtan River Crossing features multiple engineering innovations. The main cable introduces a new automatic temperature and humidity monitoring system, which, together with the internal ventilation and anti-corrosion systems, technically solves the main cable protection problem; a new type of main cable anchorage structure for suspension bridges is adopted to achieve maintenance-free operation throughout its service life.
The construction of the Longtan River Crossing will further shorten the distance between Yizheng and Nanjing, promote the integrated development of urban agglomerations, help Yizheng undertake industrial transfer, give play to the radiating role of Nanjing as a central city, drive the economic and industrial development of both banks, and achieve coordinated development of transportation, industry, and space.