The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge is an enormous 35 mile bridge being built at the waters of Lingdingyang of Pearl River Estuary. Which is a large sea crossing linking the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Zhuhai City of Guangdong Province, and Macao Special Administrative Region.
This bridge is set to open in the second quarter of this year (2018). Although a precise date has not been set yet the bridge is said to start services officially around May or June. The final commissioning date will depend on the construction progress of port facilities in Zhuhai and Hong Kong. The Macau checkpoint is likely to be completed earlier than the other sections considering the rate of it’s progress.
The functions of the bridge are to meet the demand of passenger and freight land transportation between Hong Kong and Macao to establish a new land transport link between the east and west banks of the Pearl River in the hopes to enhance the economic and sustainable development of the three places.
The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge is part of a push from the central government in China to integrate the Pearl River Delta region, putting three major cities within an hour’s commute of each other. The cities of Zhuhai, Macau, and Hong Kong will have easy access to each other once the bridge is fully complete.
This 55km bridge will consist of three cable-stayed bridges and an undersea tunnel. While the express rail links with the high-speed rail network in the China mainland, the new control point will connect the eastern corridor in Shenzhen that links with eastern Guangdong.
The bridge was originally supposed to open in 2016 but construction in the Hong Kong section, the section that links the main bridge to Chek Lap Kok island, was held up for a year after the resident filed a judicial review against the environmental assessment impacts of the project.
