SHENZHEN is planning to build a number of high-speed rails to connect with other cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Nanfang Daily reported yesterday.

Formulated by the city’s transportation commission, the urban planning, land and resources commission and the development and reform commission, the traffic planning has been approved by the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the CPC and the Shenzhen Municipal Government.

According to the planning, the city is mulling over building up to 11 rail and road links across the Pearl River estuary that would enable direct access to other Greater Bay Area cities on the western side of the estuary. The new links include Shenzhen-Zhuhai railway/highway passage and the extension of the Outer Ring Expressway that will cross the Pearl River estuary.

“The planning and construction of a series of new strategic traffic links will further promote the coordinated development of the eastern and western sides of the Pearl River estuary, alleviate regional imbalance and expand Shenzhen’s positive influence on regional development,” Guo Wanda, vice president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, was quoted as saying.

Shenzhen has made a systematic planning for optimizing the transportation system and will strive to make the city an international air transportation hub, a national railway hub, a world-class container shipping hub and a regional intercity rail transit hub, according to Shenzhen Mayor Chen Rugui.

In order to become a regional intercity rail transit hub, the planning proposes building an intercity rail transit system on the eastern side of the Pearl River estuary with Shenzhen at its center.

On the basis of the existing five intercity rail links, the rail transit system will further expand to connect all Greater Bay Area cities, including Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Huizhou, Dongguan, Guangzhou, Zhaoqing, Jiangmen and Foshan.

The planning also proposes expediting the construction of the Shenzhen-Maoming, Ganzhou-Shenzhen, Shenzhen-Shanwei high-speed railways, and conducting a feasibility study on high-speed rails that connect Shenzhen with Fujian and Hunan provinces as well as the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. These will include a second Guangdong-Hunan high-speed rail, the Shenzhen-Nanning railway and a coastal high-speed railway.

(Zhang Yu)