Zhang Jun/Shanghai Daily news

Piling work of the city's first cable-stayed two-level bridge across the Huangpu River will kick off on Friday, bridge designers announced yesterday.

When it is completed in three years' time, the Minpu Bridge will be the seventh major bridge in Shanghai across the Huangpu River.

The bridge will make it quicker and easier to travel from the city's suburban areas, as well as the neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, to the Pudong International Airport.

"The two-level bridge will greatly facilitate road traffic in the city's suburban areas," Yue Guiping, head of the bridge department at the Shanghai Engineering Design Institute, told a local Chinese newspaper yesterday.

Located between the Xupu Bridge and the Fengpu Bridge, the Minpu Bridge will link Luchen Road in Pudong and Longwu Road in Minhang District, he said.

The bridge will be 3,610 meters long, including a cable-stayed span of 708 meters - which engineers claim will be the longest two-level cable-stayed bridge in the world.

The upper level of the bridge, which will have eight lanes with a maximum speed limit of 120 kilometers per hour, will be reserved as part of the existing Pudong Airport Expressway with its total distance of 83 kilometers, connecting Zhejiang Province and the airport.

The lower level of the bridge, with six lanes and a speed limit of 60 kilometers per hour, is designed to connect Minhang District along both banks of the Huangpu River.

Some urban planners said the new bridge will help form a quicker expressway network because the new Pudong Airport Expressway will have several intersections with the city's existing expressways.

Currently, the city has six major bridges across the Huangpu River:

*The Yangpu Bridge: linking Ningguo Road in Puxi and Luoshan Road in Pudong

*The Nanpu Bridge: linking Zhongshan Road S. in Puxi and Longyang Road in Pudong

*The Lupu Bridge: linking Luban Road in Puxi and Jiyang Road in Pudong

*The Xupu Bridge: linking the Outer Ring Road in Pudong and Puxi

*The Fengpu Bridge: linking the Puxi and Pudong sides of the Xinfeng Expressway

*The Songpu Bridge: linking Chedun Town in Puxi and Tinglin Town in Pudong