The main tower of a bridge that will connect downtown Shanghai with the city's two largest islands and reduce traveling time was completed yesterday, six months ahead of schedule.

The 212-m-high main tower for the Shanghai Yangtze River Bridge, which will link the mainland to Chongming and Changxing islands was erected at 10:40 am.

Li Zongping, deputy project manager, said: "We have finished 70 percent of the bridge and will start installing suspension cables next month."

The road surface for the six-lane bridge will be completed by June, he said.

On completion, the bridge will be the third-widest suspension bridge in the country and fifth widest in the world.

The bridge will open to traffic in 2009, at the same time as an 8.9-km underwater tunnel linking Pudong on the mainland to Changxing Island, and a 6.3-km highway between the two islands.

Changxing lies between the mainland and Chongming Island.

An accompanying metro line is also being planned.

The projects, with a combined value of 12.3 billion yuan ($1.66 billion), will reduce the commuting time between Shanghai and the islands to about 20 minutes, Li said.

Currently, the journey takes an hour by ferry.

A bridge linking Chongming Island to Nantong in Jiangsu Province will be able to shorten the commute even further, he said.

The massive infrastructure projects are expected to boost the development of Chongming county, which encompasses Chongming, Changxing and Hengsha islands.

The county has yet to benefit fully from Shanghai's rapid development.

The projects are also part of the city's efforts to better integrate itself with and enhance the economic development of the whole Yangtze River Delta area, which comprises Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

(China Daily November 29, 2007)