Shanghai Daily news

For wang Guofu, a cabby who has been driving for more than a decade in Pudong New Area, updating his traffic map has progressed from an annual ritual to almost a monthly necessity.
With new bridges, tunnels, air facilities and shipping ports being added in what seems to be a near-constant construction boom, Pudong's transport infrastructure has grown rapidly over the 15 years since the city designated the eastern bank of the Huangpu River as a prime economic development zone.
"Now, I have many more choices in taking passengers between Pudong and Puxi than I did years ago," Wang said.
In 1990, when the Pudong New Area was christened, there were only two connections from Shanghai's downtown: the Dapu Road Tunnel and the Yan'an Road East Tunnel.
In those days most people depended on ferries for their cross-river commutes.
But in the intervening years, the city has added four new bridges and four new tunnels, making obsolete the old saying that a bed in Puxi is better than a suite in Pudong.
"People living in different parts of the city can now customize their routes to cross the river," said Chen Youhua, a senior engineer with the Shanghai Urban Planning Administrative Bureau.
He said Shanghai expects to build more than 16 connections across the Huangpu River by 2020, mostly tunnels.
"Without convenient traffic connections, the Pudong development strategy would be impossible," he said, noting there will eventually be a river crossing every one to two kilometers.
Pudong is also upgrading its connections to the outside world.
The second runway of Pudong International Airport went into operation last month as part of the city's strategic plan to develop Shanghai into a regional aviation center.
The pudong airport, which opened in September 1999, now functions as the city's main international hub.
Facing increasing air travel demand in recent years, the airport's first phase is running near full capacity. In 2004, more than 180,000 flights touched down at the air field.
The opening of the second runway is expected to increase the airport's flight handling capacity by more than 60 percent.
In addition to the new runway, the airport operator, Shanghai Airport Authority, also renovated the terminal building by adding more check-in counters and security passages to increase passenger flow.
"The second runway plus the other renovations will be able to satisfy demand through 2008," said Wu Nianzu, president of Shanghai Airport Authority.
He also noted that the construction of a second terminal and a third runway is expected to start this year.
"They will be completed by 2008. We expect these moves to help the city seize the opportunities of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai Expo," he said.
Among pudong's other main infrastructure projects is the Yangshan Deep-water Port.
"Shanghai is now in urgent need of more capacity to handle its growing trade as existing ports are nearly at full swing," said a local industry analyst.
"Otherwise, the city may lose freight to other neighboring ports in Asia."
Yangshan port represents the latest move by the government to help build the city into an international shipping hub in northeastern Asia.
The port is located on an island 27 kilometers away from the downtown, where water depths of more than 15 meters will enable it to handle the world's largest container vessels.