(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-12-19 15:09

After 15 years of work, 12 national trunk roads with a total length of 35,000 km will be completed and open to traffic by the end of this year, the Ministry of the Communications announced yesterday.

Linking all cities with populations of more than 1 million people and a good proportion of those with more than 500,000 people, the five vertical and seven horizontal trunk roads will form an efficient network of road transport that not only makes travel more convenient, but also contributes to the economic and social development of the country.

Completing this network will elevate the transport sector to a new level and bring more economic benefits to the country.

To ordinary people, improved road services, which are an important part of public service, will greatly shorten the distances between their homes and other spots around the country.

Having an expanded road network will help improve people's living standards, accelerate urbanization and promote harmonious regional development.

Building this massive network of roads has not been easy. Workers have had to overcome complex geographical challenges, changeable weather and funding shortages while paying attention to quality, safety, environment protection and efforts to stop corruption.

These experiences represent a solid foundation of knowledge on which the country can draw as it builds more infrastructure for communications and transport.

To meet the increasing demand for public transport, China has accelerated the improvement of highways and roads in rural areas, ports and passenger and shipping centers in recent years.

Today, roads link more than 98 percent of all townships and more than 86 percent of all villages.

The country has set an ambitious goal of building another 1 million km of highways by 2020, while upgrading its existing network to cater to transport needs, which experts anticipate will continue to grow.

It is estimated that 36.5 billion passenger trips and 20 billion tons of goods will traverse the country's road system every year.

As China will continue to add roads at a brisk pace, more attention should be paid to the maintenance of existing roads and transport facilities. Regular inspections and timely repair work are needed to ensure road safety.