China's strongest urban agglomeration is becoming a "city"

National Strategy

2024-06-30 11:39Creators in the field of finance and economics

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01The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor was officially opened, directly connecting the east and west banks of the Pearl River Estuary and shortening the access time between the Shenzhen metropolitan area and the west bank of the Pearl River Estuary.

02Due to the large number of economically strong cities on both sides of the Pearl River Estuary, the overall urbanization rate of the Greater Bay Area has exceeded 85%, and the cities continue to spread and become one.

03Although the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge has been opened, the metropolitan area on the west bank of the Pearl River Estuary still needs more passages, and the completion of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor is of historic significance.

04 In addition, the "double Y" expansion plan of the Shenzhen-Zhuhai Corridor and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge has not yet been determined, and the future capital investment is also expensive.

05In any case, the Greater Bay Area is gradually turning into a one-hour economic circle, traffic circle, and living circle through a strong transportation system.

Technical support is provided by Tencent Hybrid Model

Text: Kaifeng

At the mouth of the Pearl River, a "big sewing technique" is being staged.

01

A bridge flies east and west, and the moat becomes a thoroughfare.

A few days ago, the high-profile Shenzhen-Zhongshan Passage was officially opened, which is a super project integrating artificial islands, Shenzhen-Zhongshan Tunnel, Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge and Hengmen West Waterway Bridge, and finally ushered in a historic moment.

The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Passage, across the Lingding Ocean, directly connects the east and west banks of the Pearl River Estuary, and opens up the Shenzhen metropolitan area and the west bank of the Pearl River Estuary.

From Shenzhen to Zhongshan, Zhuhai and other places, there is no need to bypass the Humen Bridge, and the access time is shortened from one and a half hours to about half an hour, officially moving towards the "one-hour traffic circle".

The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor has added an important horizontal to the main framework of the "A" shaped traffic around the Pearl River Estuary in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and forms a link connecting the east and west sides of the strait together with the Humen Bridge, Nansha Bridge and Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, which have been completed and opened to traffic.

If we add the planned Shenzhen-Zhuhai Passage and Lianhuashan Passage, there will be 11 cross-river and cross-sea passages in the Pearl River Estuary in the near future.

As we all know, on both sides of the Pearl River estuary, surrounded by many economically strong cities including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Macao, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhuhai and Zhongshan, a 100-kilometer "golden inner bay" is formed.

This golden inner bay is not only the area with the highest economic density and population density in the mainland, but also the area with the highest urbanization rate, with the overall urbanization rate exceeding 85%, and most cities reaching more than 90%.

Viewed from space, the geographical boundaries between the cities of the Greater Bay Area are disappearing in the region, and the cities are spreading and connecting into one, and there is almost no clear dividing line.

Nowadays, even the two sides of the Pearl River Estuary are also being connected by a number of cross-river and cross-sea channels, and the two sides of the Pearl River have opened the road to the "O" shaped closed loop from the "V" shaped estuary.

It is not for nothing that some people say that the Greater Bay Area is becoming more and more like a "city".

02

With the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, why spend more than 40 billion to build the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor?

The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor, with a total length of 24 kilometers, has a total investment of 44.6 billion yuan and an average cost of 1.92 billion yuan per kilometer, ranking second among the national sea-crossing bridges.

As the world's most difficult cross-sea cluster project in comprehensive construction, the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor should take into account the needs of ports to the sea and airport navigation, so there are bridges, deep tunnels and artificial islands, and a number of projects have refreshed the world's best.

It is precisely because of the huge investment that the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Channel charges are not low.

At present, the minimum charge for the whole line is 66 yuan, which is higher than that of Humen Bridge and Nansha Bridge, but because the line is longer, the unit charge per kilometer is lower than the latter.

The cost is expensive, and there are Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, Humen Bridge, and Nansha Bridge dozens of kilometers away.

The reason for this is that the flow of people and logistics on the east and west banks of the Pearl River is far from being satisfied by one or two bridges.

The Greater Bay Area is the most mature urban agglomeration in mainland China and is also known as the closest to the world's continuous urban belt, with more than 86 million people in the entire region, and more than 6 million people commuting across cities every day, and may exceed 10 million in the near future.

Among the existing cross-river passages at the mouth of the Pearl River, the Humen Bridge built at the end of the last century has long been overwhelmed, and the newly built Nansha Bridge has exceeded the design flow after only more than four years of operation, and the congested traffic is more than 10 kilometers on holidays.

The design flow of Humen Bridge and Nansha Bridge is 100,000 vehicles per day, but it has reached 200,000 vehicles during peak periods, and it is urgent to divert new cross-river bridges.

In addition, the Pearl River Estuary is an A-shaped structure, and most of the current cross-river passages are concentrated in Guangzhou at the apex, and Shenzhen has been lacking direct access to Zhongshan and Zhuhai on the west bank of the Pearl River Estuary, and the cross-strait railway traffic also has to be bypassed from Guangzhou.

Although the opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge has alleviated this problem to a certain extent, due to the single "Y" design, it has not been able to connect with Shenzhen, resulting in a traffic gap between Shenzhen and the west bank of the Pearl River Estuary.

At present, with the further integration of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, coupled with the promotion of policies such as "Hong Kong cars and Macao cars going north", the passenger flow of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is ushering in a blowout.

According to the data, in 2023, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge will have more than 16.3 million inbound and outbound passengers, 2.23 times that of 2019, and it has exceeded the 10 million mark in the first five months of this year, and is expected to stand at a new high of 20 million passengers throughout the year.

It can be said that even if the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge does not build a new branch line in Shenzhen, the passenger flow will tend to be saturated sooner or later, and the Pearl River Estuary obviously needs more passages.

03

The completion and opening of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor is undoubtedly of historical significance.

Shenzhen has successfully expanded its "sphere of influence" to the west bank of the Pearl River across the Lingding Ocean, while Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Jiangmen and other places have also been able to enjoy the spillover effect of China's third-largest economic city.

At present, Guangdong has planned five metropolitan areas, including two national metropolitan areas of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, as well as the west bank of the Pearl River Estuary, Shanjiechao and Zhanmao metropolitan areas.

The Guangzhou and Shenzhen metropolitan areas are both 5 trillion-level super metropolitan areas, and their interiors have long been connected by cross-city subways and urban rails, and the joint construction of trillion-level industries.

Not only internally, but also between the two metropolitan areas, the traffic is very frequent, and the traffic is entering the "same city" mode.

Just last month, the Guangzhou-Foshan-Zhaoguan-Huizhou Intercity Railway, known as the "No. 1 Metro in the Bay Area", was officially opened, forming an east-west artery with a total length of 258 kilometers across the five cities of Guangzhou-Foshan-Zhaoguan-Huizhou. (See "China's Longest Cross-City "Subway" is Coming)

Not only that, the Greater Bay Area Metro Line 2 is about to come out.

According to reports, Shenzhen Metro will take over the Guangzhou-Dongguan-Shenzhen Intercity Railway, which will crisscross with Line 1 of the Greater Bay Area, and is expected to further extend to Huizhou, Shanwei, Qingyuan and other places.

When the Guangzhou metropolitan area and the Shenzhen metropolitan area have "broken the circle" and joined hands, in the Greater Bay Area, which is best at integrated development, the metropolitan area on the west bank of the Pearl River Estuary will not be left aside.

The metropolitan area on the west bank of the Pearl River Estuary is composed of four cities: Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Jiangmen and Yangjiang, and is located between the Guangzhou metropolitan area and the Foshan metropolitan area.

Although the strategic positioning of the western Zhuhai metropolitan area is not low, due to the lack of strong central cities and no leaders, the development is far less than that of the two first-tier city metropolitan areas.

However, with the opening of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor, the southern extension of Guangzhou Metro Line 22 and the inclusion of the Guangzhou-Zhuhai-Macao high-speed railway, the western Zhuhai metropolitan area finally has the possibility of being left and right.

Behind the traffic circle are the living circle, the industrial circle and the economic circle.

At present, "industrial enclaves" such as the Shenzhen-China Economic Cooperation Zone jointly built by Shenzhen and Zhongshan and the Shenzhen-Jiangxi Economic Cooperation Zone jointly built with Jiangmen have been unveiled.

From transportation to coordinated development of industries, regional integration is a good thing in either aspect.

04

After the Shenzhong Passage, who is the next cross-river and cross-sea passage?

A Shenzhen-Zhongshan Corridor is still not enough, will the "Double Y" expansion of the Shenzhen-Zhuhai Corridor (Lingdingyang Corridor) and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge be carried out?

The Shenzhu channel may not be far away, and there may be actions during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030).

According to the official reply, the project is currently actively seeking support at the national level, and strives to incorporate the project into the national highway network line plan, the railway medium and long-term plan (revision), the national "15th Five-Year Plan" and other relevant national plans.

Once this passage is completed, it will only take 30 minutes to travel from Qianhai in Shenzhen to Jinding in Zhuhai at the earliest, which will form a veritable one-hour economic circle.

Of course, the biggest hurdles are still passenger flow expectations and costs.

The estimated total investment of the Shenzhen-Zhuhai Corridor is expected to exceed 40 billion yuan, and there are already two bridges on both sides of the strait, Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao and Shenzhen-Zhonghua, whether a third one needs to be built still needs to be demonstrated for a long time.

The expansion of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge has also been included in the study, but there is still great uncertainty about whether it can be built.

The "Guangdong Comprehensive Transport Plan 2035" released in 2021 mentions that the passage from Shenzhen to Zhuhai and Macao via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge will be studied to better play the role of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.

In April this year, the "Zhuhai Municipal Land and Space Recent Plan 2025", which began to solicit comments, appeared in the expression "Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge: Policy Breakthrough, Connecting Shenzhen and Hong Kong", which was interpreted by public opinion as a signal to connect Shenzhen.

Although the "double Y" plan is quite popular, there are great uncertainties due to the different road traffic rules and customs rules in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, and the future capital investment is also expensive.

In any case, through the powerful "sewing technique", the Pearl River Estuary is becoming an "inland river" in the Greater Bay Area. The existence of multi-level transportation systems such as cross-city subway, intercity transportation, and high-speed rail has turned the entire Greater Bay Area into a one-hour economic circle, transportation circle, and living circle.

In short, in the era of metropolitan areas and urban agglomerations, the Yangtze River Delta is becoming more and more like a province, while the Greater Bay Area is becoming more and more like a city.

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