WORK on a bus interchange station started recently and will be completed Jan. 1, according to the city’s transport department.

To be built at the intersection of Binhai Road and Taixue Road in Jiaonan, the Lingshanwei Interchange is costing 15 million yuan. It will have 140 parking areas for buses and 64 parking spaces for other vehicles.

About 6,000 to 8,000 Jiaonan residents take a bus to the Development Zone and downtown Qingdao every day. After the station is built, it will be easier to change buses.

Meanwhile, Jiaonan will open five new bus routes to connect with buses in downtown Qingdao. The transport authorities are now discussing purchasing 40 buses using natural gas and they will be ready for operation in mid-December.

When the Jiaozhou Bay tunnel opens, residents can transfer to several buses from downtown Jiaonan to the Development Zone. The whole journey takes about two hours, but with the new interchange and new bus routes, it would take no more than an hour to travel between the two areas.

The city will add 60 buses on four routes using the tunnel to reach the interchange station.

(Wang Yuanyuan, Han Guangliang)