The Pearl River Delta is frantically building subways, while the Yangtze River Delta is desperately constructing high-speed railways.
Recently, the second phase of the Dongguan Metro Line 1 project, located within Guangzhou's territory (Guangzhou-Dongguan border - Huangpu Xin Gang), has begun its environmental impact assessment public notice.
This means that in the future, Dongguan Metro will be connected to Guangzhou Metro, and from Songshan Lake in Dongguan, you can transfer once to directly reach Guangzhou's Pearl River New Town.
Prior to this, the "Greater Bay Area Line 1" connecting Guangzhou, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhaoqing, and Huizhou has already been opened, with a total length of 258 kilometers.
Because it adopts bus-like and subway-like operations and is directly managed by the subway group, it is called "China's longest inter-city subway."
In addition, according to the second phase planning information of Dongguan Metro, Dongguan will have 4 subways connecting Shenzhen; Guangzhou Metro Line 18 is also extending southward, connecting Zhongshan and Zhuhai through the Nanzhu (middle) intercity connection... A subway network covering the Greater Bay Area is gradually taking shape.
In contrast, in the Yangtze River Delta, which is several times larger than the Greater Bay Area, high-speed rail travel is a more convenient form of transportation.
On September 6th, the Hangzhou-Wenzhou high-speed railway was opened, completing the "1-hour traffic circle" on land in Zhejiang; a few days later, Jiangsu also revealed that the province's high-speed railway "central axis" - Yanyi Railway will start construction within the year; then on September 19th, the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed railway entered the joint debugging and testing phase, which means the day of high-speed railway opening is coming.
As the first high-speed railway in the Yangtze River Delta connecting Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed railway line is about 163 kilometers long, with a design speed of 350 kilometers per hour, and a total of 8 stations including Shanghai Hongqiao, Shanghai Songjiang, Liantang, Suzhou South, Shengze, Huzhou Nanxun, Huzhou East, and Huzhou Station.
What does its completion mean for the cities along the way?
What is its significance for the integration of the Yangtze River Delta?
Huzhou: From a transportation blind spot to a new hub in the Yangtze River Delta, unlike the Greater Bay Area, the Yangtze River Delta only has Shanghai as the leading dragon and core, and all cities take docking with Shanghai as the primary task, even provincial capitals like Hangzhou.
Recently, the Secretary of the Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee also stated: "Our attitude is very clear, that is to actively dock and serve the great Shanghai."
And docking with the great Shanghai, the railway is key.
In the past, the main railway trunk lines starting from Shanghai were mainly two, the Shanghai-Nanjing line and the Shanghai-Hangzhou line, which connected most of the cities in southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang, except for Huzhou.
Before that, in the water transport era, using the dense Taihu Lake water network, Huzhou and Shanghai had been closely connected.
At the beginning of Shanghai's opening, Nanxun in Huzhou opened a steamer service to Shanghai, regularly carrying Nanxun's Ji Li Lake silk to Shanghai for sale to the world, thus achieving the brilliance of Nanxun's "four elephants, eight cattle, and seventy-two golden dogs."
However, entering the railway era, Taihu Lake has become an obstacle to the connection between Shanghai and Huzhou.
Going from Huzhou, located on the west bank of Taihu Lake, to Shanghai requires a transfer in Hangzhou, taking several hours.
And to go to the neighboring Suzhou, you need to go through Ninghang, Shanghai-Hangzhou, and Shanghai-Nanjing, these 3 main lines, and take a big detour to reach Suzhou.
Affected by the inconvenience of transportation, once rich and known as "when Suzhou and Huzhou are ripe, the world is sufficient," Huzhou gradually became the slowest developing city in the Taihu Lake city group.
In 2023, the GDP of Suzhou, Wuxi, and Changzhou around Taihu Lake all exceeded one hundred billion yuan, reaching 2465.337 billion yuan, 1545.619 billion yuan, and 1011.636 billion yuan, respectively, while Huzhou's GDP was only 401.51 billion yuan, about 16.3%, 26%, and 39.7% of Suzhou, Wuxi, and Changzhou.
In fact, as early as 1994, Huzhou Daily published an article "In order for Taihu Lake not to tilt," reflecting on whether the gap between Huzhou and the southern part of Jiangsu in the Taihu Lake basin is widening?
What is the root cause of the "tilt" between Huzhou and the southern part of Jiangsu in terms of economy?
Is it possible for Huzhou to catch up with the north shore of Taihu Lake?
But 30 years later today, Taihu Lake is still "tilted."
However, it is also not objective to say that Huzhou has not changed.
More than 10 years ago, a large number of Shanghai people flocked to Huzhou for tourism and vacations, and Huzhou became the "back garden" of Shanghai people and the first choice for surrounding tours.
And the later "two mountains theory" was born in Anji, Huzhou, which is also related to the close interaction between Huzhou and Shanghai.
After the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed railway is opened, the traffic barrier between Shanghai and Huzhou will be opened, and it will only take 40 minutes from Huzhou to Shanghai at the fastest, which will undoubtedly help Huzhou further integrate into the Shanghai metropolitan area.
This is also the reason why people generally believe that Huzhou is the biggest beneficiary of this high-speed railway.
Of course, the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed railway's help to Huzhou is not only to dock with Shanghai, but also to establish its position as an important high-speed railway hub in northern Zhejiang.
For a long time, Huzhou, located on the north side of Taihu Lake, has not been very prominent in the Yangtze River Delta railway network.
The railway's empowerment to Huzhou's city is also far less than Jiaxing, Suzhou, Wuxi and other cities on the main trunk lines of Shanghai-Hangzhou and Shanghai-Nanjing.
However, in recent years, with the opening of the Ninghang high-speed railway and the Shangqiaohang high-speed railway, Huzhou is changing from a transportation blind spot to a hub in northern Zhejiang.
In the future, the Yanyi high-speed railway and the Xiyi intercity S2 line will also extend to Huzhou.
The Yanyi high-speed railway will form a vertical high-speed railway central axis in Jiangsu and Zhejiang with the Huhang and Hangwen high-speed railways, and the Xiyi intercity S2 line will be connected with the Rutong Suhu intercity railway to form a "Taihu Lake intercity rail transit circle."
At that time, Huzhou's position as a hub in northern Zhejiang may surpass Jiaxing, and the "tilted" banks of Taihu Lake may also be rebalanced, thereby helping Huzhou to return to its historical status.
Suzhou: Filling the last gap in the railway network Similar to Huzhou, in the past, the external connection of Suzhou, the second station of the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed railway line, was greatly restricted by the Shanghai-Nanjing line, mainly concentrated in the southern part of Jiangsu and Shanghai.
After the Shanghai-Suzhou-Nantong railway was opened in 2020, it began to expand to the central part of Jiangsu.
And Suzhou and Hang-Jia-Hu, which are also the core of Wu culture, due to the lack of direct railway connection, the traffic is not convenient, and the train services between each other are also relatively few.
Therefore, Suzhou has connected with Jiaxing and Ningbo to the south through the Suzhou-Jia-Ning high-speed railway in recent years; and directly connected with Huzhou to the west through the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed railway.
Among them, the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed railway and the already built Shanghai-Nanjing line (including Beijing-Shanghai railway, Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, Shanghai-Nanjing intercity) and the Yangtze River line (including Shanghai-Suzhou-Nantong railway and the southern Yangtze River high-speed railway) together form the "three horizontals" of the "abundant" shape high-speed railway main skeleton of Suzhou, and the Tongsu-Jia-Ning high-speed railway is that "one vertical."
This newly built horizontal and vertical not only opens up the connection between Suzhou and northern Zhejiang, but also will promote the development of the southern area of Suzhou.
As we all know, Suzhou used to have "five tigers" - Kunshan, Taicang, Changshu, Zhangjiagang, and Wujiang.
Among them, the "first four tigers" are relatively independent county-level cities and have been in the top ten of the top 100 counties for many years.
And the "fifth tiger" Wujiang was abolished as a city and set up as a district in 2012, becoming the largest urban area of Suzhou.
However, the residents of these five cities have always had a low sense of identity with Suzhou, and they all call themselves "Jiangsu Kunshan people, Jiangsu Zhangjiagang people" when they go out.
In order to promote their sense of identity with Suzhou, it is necessary to provide some substantial incentive measures, especially for Wujiang, which has been set up as a district.
If there is no corresponding incentive, it may become a negative example, and it will also lead to other four cities more and more resistant to the integration with Suzhou city.
So what is Wujiang most lacking now?
That is the railway.
The existing railways in Suzhou are almost all along the direction from the east to the north of the city.
For example, the Beijing-Shanghai railway has stations in Xiangcheng, Huqiu, Gusu, Industrial Park, and Kunshan; the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway has stations in Kunshan and Xiangcheng; the Shanghai-Nanjing intercity has stations in Kunshan, Industrial Park, Gusu, and Huqiu.
And the newly opened southern Yangtze River high-speed railway has three stations in Zhangjiagang, Changshu, and Taicang, and the Shanghai-Suzhou-Nantong railway has six stations in Zhangjiagang North, Zhangjiagang, Changshu, Taicang Port, Taicang, and Taicang South.
It is not difficult to find that among the "five tigers" of Suzhou, only Wujiang has not yet been connected by railway.
And when it comes to the six districts and four counties of Suzhou city, only Wuzhong and Wujiang do not have railway stations distributed.
The difference is that Wuzhong has a much smaller area and population than Wujiang, and is located in the central urban area of Suzhou, which is very convenient to go to Suzhou station, Suzhou Industrial Park station, and Suzhou New District station.
However, Wujiang District is an important economic town in Suzhou, and among the three Fortune 500 companies, two (Hengli, Shenghong) are in Wujiang.
The Shengze Town in the south of Wujiang District is also a super town with economic strength of "one town against one county."
In addition, Wujiang is also a demonstration area for the integration of the Yangtze River Delta, and the subordinate Li Li Town is a pilot starting area.
Given the prominent political and economic status of Wujiang District, it is necessary to build a railway.
Therefore, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Suzhou will focus on promoting the railway layout of the southern Wujiang District.
Among them, the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed railway runs through Wujiang, connecting Shengze and Li Li two towns; the Tongsu-Jia-Ning high-speed railway also has a station in Li Li Town (Suzhou South Station); the Shanghai-Suzhou-Jia intercity railway connects to the Suzhou intercity railway network through Suzhou South Station; as for another under construction Rutong Suhu intercity railway, it has set up 5 stations in Wujiang territory (Wujiang, Ba Che, Ping Wang, Shengze, Zhen Ze).
In this way, not only the history of Wujiang not having a railway has ended, but also the last gap in Suzhou's railway network has been filled.
Suzhou South Station located in Li Li Town has become a new railway hub in the south of Suzhou because it has multiple high-speed railways and intercity railways passing through, which has completely opened up the four directions of Suzhou's southward, northward, eastward, and westward channels, and is conducive to expanding the city's radiation and economic influence of this first-level city in China.
Shanghai: The "third channel" Shanghai-Hefei line has been officially opened.
Compared with Huzhou and Suzhou, as the object of docking, Shanghai can also benefit a lot from this "horizontal" railway.
Economist Li Xunlei once studied that the biggest beneficiary of building high-speed railways is actually the central big cities, which can accelerate the convergence of population and resources to the central city.
This is also why first and second-tier cities have been committed to building high-speed railway hub cities in recent years, and the traditional "cross-shaped" hub and even the "hexagonal-shaped" hub are no longer surprising.
Central cities like Beijing, Zhengzhou, and Wuhan, and even prefecture-level cities like Nanchang and Bozhou have proposed to build a "rice-shaped" high-speed railway network.The "cross" high-speed rail network can significantly expand the urban hinterland and attract more talent, which is particularly important for Shanghai, which is troubled by aging and low birth rates.
Data shows that Shanghai is the only one among the four first-tier cities where the number of children in kindergartens continues to decline rapidly.
Over the past five years, the number of children in kindergartens in Shanghai has dropped from 571,000 to 484,000, a decrease of 15.3%.
If this trend cannot be reversed, it may impact Shanghai's status as the "number one city."
To expand Shanghai's economic hinterland, it is essential to densify the high-speed rail network centered around Shanghai.
Compared to cities like Beijing, Zhengzhou, and Wuhan, there are not many high-speed rail lines radiating in all directions from Shanghai.
On one hand, it is because Shanghai is located at the mouth of the Yangtze River, with the sea to the east; on the other hand, for a long time, Shanghai has only had two external channels, the Hu-Ning and Hu-Hang, the former connecting to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region to the north, and the latter connecting to the Pearl River Delta to the south.
Since entering the high-speed rail era, this situation is changing.
To the south, the Hu-Kun high-speed rail connects to the southwest, and the construction of the Hang-Wen high-speed rail has significantly shortened the distance from Shanghai to Fujian and Guangdong; to the north, the construction of the second Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail line has strengthened the connection between Beijing and Shanghai, and brought the northern part of Jiangsu and eastern part of Shandong closer to Shanghai.
The construction of the north-south Yangtze River high-speed rail has expanded Shanghai's hinterland in the Yangtze River basin.
The upcoming completion of the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed rail also belongs to the Yangtze River corridor in China's "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed rail network.
The difference is that the north-south Yangtze River high-speed rail mainly connects southern Jiangsu and central Jiangsu, while the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed rail connects northern Zhejiang and southern Anhui.
Both are core areas of the Yangtze River Delta and the core hinterland of Shanghai's metropolis, indispensable to each other.
Moreover, after connecting with the Shang-Hu-Hang high-speed rail in Huzhou, the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed rail can directly reach Hefei, allowing the latter to directly connect with Shanghai, thereby significantly strengthening the connection between Shanghai and Anhui.
How important is this?
As we all know, in recent years, Anhui has emerged as a dark horse in the national regional competition.
As a result, Nanjing and Hangzhou, with their geographical advantages, are competing to run horses and encircle land in Anhui, vying for cities in Anhui.
Although Shanghai also has several enclaves in Anhui, it has been unable to directly project influence because it does not border Anhui.
The Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed rail helps Shanghai to open up a new channel after the Shanghai-Hangzhou and Shanghai-Nanjing channels, which is the Shanghai-Hefei channel.
In addition to Suzhou and Huzhou, there is also the newly joined Shanghai metropolitan circle of Anhui Xuancheng.
Connecting them not only can further materialize the Shanghai metropolitan circle but also will help Shanghai truly integrate Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui, promoting the integration of the Yangtze River Delta.
The red line indicates the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed rail, and the yellow line indicates the Shang-Hu-Hang high-speed rail from Hefei to Huzhou; together they form Shanghai's third channel, the Shanghai-Hefei channel.
In this way, all the cities along the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou high-speed rail line are winners, and even the cities along the extension line of Anhui will benefit from it.
Leave a Comment