China News Service, Hangzhou, September 29 (Zhou Jian) The No. 20 main tower of the Fuchimen Highway and Railway Bridge on the Yongzhou-Zhou Railway was successfully capped, and the shield section on the Zhoushan side of the Jintang Undersea Tunnel entered the 100-meter sprint... Since September, good news has been coming frequently from the construction of the Zhejiang-Yongzhou Railway. This steel dragon passing through mountains and seas is accelerating from the drawings to reality. The new development momentum of Zhoushan, the "City of Thousand Islands", is about to be activated.
This is a vivid portrayal of "If you want to be rich, build roads first." As the economy moves towards high-quality development, this simple "old saying" is not outdated, but remains fresh and shining.
Looking at Zhejiang, it is close to the East China Sea and densely covered with hills. The transportation network extending in all directions breaks the constraints caused by the complex terrain. Today, in Zhejiang, from rural roads to thoroughfares, from ground road networks to air-sea three-dimensional corridors, transportation is not only a "traffic carrier", but also a core engine that leverages common prosperity, empowers regional upgrading, and promotes opening up to the outside world.
The "Road to Common Wealth" that connects villages and towns
In the Songyang mountainous area, the "Four Good Rural Roads" have opened up the barriers between the mountains and the outside world. Ancient villages, ecological tea gardens, and characteristic B&Bs all started and prospered because of the roads; in the rural areas of Ruian, buses "bring goods along the way" allow couriers to be delivered to the village on the same day, and export agricultural products are also sold on the "express train" at good prices... In Zhejiang, the road network connects villages and towns, outlining a happy picture of integrated urban and rural development.
As a demonstration area for high-quality development and construction of common prosperity, Zhejiang is well aware that transportation is a "rigid need" to narrow the gap between urban and rural areas and improve people's livelihood. Over the years, the province has continued to promote the upgrading of rural roads and accelerated the construction of "half-hour traffic circles" in towns and key villages, moving the rural road network from "more traffic" to "good traffic and excellent traffic".
The "fixed shift + reservation response" mountainous bus operation model that Jingning pioneered in Zhejiang is a vivid example. For administrative villages where urban and rural buses are inaccessible, with a permanent population of less than 200 and a low actual load rate, the county adopts the method of "fixed 2 to 3 days a week of scheduled buses + reservations for the rest of the time", and the reserved bus fares are reduced by 50%, effectively reducing the travel costs of villagers.
Brother Lan Hou, a villager in Zhangzhuang Village, Shawan Town, felt deeply about this. "In the past, rural passenger transportation was mainly private minibuses, which cost 1 yuan per kilometer and the frequency was irregular. If there were no passenger buses for more than ten kilometers between towns and villages, we could only spend 40 yuan to charter a round trip. To save this money, we would rather walk for an hour down the mountain and an hour and a half up the mountain. Now, we no longer have to worry about going out."
Not only does the highway open to traffic, Zhejiang also innovates and explores a new model of "transportation +" integrated development, promotes the in-depth integration of transportation with agriculture, cultural tourism and other industries, and drives people along the route to increase their income and become rich.
The practice of Cangnan, a small coastal town, is quite representative. On the 168 golden coastline, 13 special viewing stations, 70 internet celebrity check-in points, and 15 tourist supporting parking lots are spread out, attracting tourists in droves. In 2025, more than 10 million tourists will be received along the route, the number of entrepreneurial entities will increase to 4,000, and more than 12,000 jobs will be created directly or indirectly. The operating income of the seven towns and villages along the route will increase by 70% year-on-year compared with 2022.
The road stretches in the scenery, people wander in the painting, industry is prosperous because of the road, and life is beautiful because of the road. The relevant person in charge of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Transportation said that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the government will focus on mass tourism consumption needs, comprehensively plan the integration of transportation and tourism to promote consumption reform, and create a number of new consumption scenarios such as high-quality tourist roads, water tours, cruises and yachts, low-altitude sightseeing, and the "Zheyun Jiangnanyi" themed service area, so that more people can "travel with the traffic."
Comprehensive and three-dimensional "economic road"
If highways are the "capillaries" that nourish the countryside, then major transportation facilities such as expressways, high-speed rails, and airports are the "main arteries" that drive industrial iteration and support economic development. In recent years, Zhejiang has continued to build a comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network, injecting a steady stream of strong momentum into improving the quality and efficiency of the province's economy.
In August this year, the Wenling to Yuhuan section of the Hangzhou-Taiwan High-speed Railway was officially opened for operation. At this point, the island city of Yuhuan has realized its "high-speed rail dream", and the "dividends" brought by its opening to traffic have gradually emerged. Nanwan Zhigu, a 10-minute drive from Yuhuan Station, is taking the lead in the future robotics industry. Xu Mo, deputy director of the Yuhuan Economic and Information Bureau, said that the opening of the high-speed rail will be more conducive to accurately attracting high-quality projects and scientific and technological resources, gathering high-end talents, and enhancing the advantages of the robotics industry cluster.
The "dividends" also radiate to Wenling. Chen Xiangbiao, general manager of the Zhejiang Measuring and Cutting Tools Trading Center, said that Yuhuan's auto parts, valves, and machine tool manufacturing and Wenling's measuring and cutting tool industries are complementary. The trading center will rely on the high-speed rail channel to integrate into the core economic circle of the Yangtze River Delta to the north and radiate to the manufacturing clusters of southern Zhejiang and northern Fujian to the south.
The air channel has also achieved leapfrog breakthroughs. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Lishui Airport and Jiaxing Nanhu Airport were put into operation one after another, making up for the shortcomings of aviation in southwestern Zhejiang and northern Zhejiang. Especially for Lishui, the opening of the airport further breaks the geographical constraints of mountainous areas. It not only greatly shortens the time and space distance between Lishui and key cities across the country, but also qualitatively improves the turnover efficiency of people, logistics, and information flow.
Therefore, Lishui took advantage of the situation and laid out the airport park to transform "air superiority" into "industrial victory." On the first anniversary of the opening of the airport, a total of 28 projects have been implemented in the first phase of the park. 1,066 acres of industrial land have been transferred, with a total investment of 22.927 billion yuan. The industrial layout covers key areas such as new energy automobile parts, intelligent valves, electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing, and has handed over the answer sheet for mountainous cities to leverage transportation empowerment to achieve overtaking in corners.
Obviously, the increasingly dense high-speed rail network and increasingly busy air routes are connecting Zhejiang’s future. Facing 2030, the province will continue to make efforts to: improve the overall layout of "hub + channel + network", realize "city-to-city high-speed rail", basically connect cities and towns with a population of 100,000 to highways, "double" the number of thousand-ton inland waterways to 1,200 kilometers, and transport airport passenger throughput to 130 million passengers.
An “open road” linking the world
The value of transportation lies not only in internal empowerment, but also in opening up to the outside world and connecting the world. Zhejiang uses transportation interconnection to drive economic and trade exchanges and polish the "golden business card" of high-level opening up.
At the Yiwu (Suxi) International Hub Port, containers filled with small commodities are lined up to be sent to Ningbo Zhoushan Port via sea-rail combined transport trains. As the only port in the world with two single-unit container terminals with a capacity of 10 million containers, Ningbo-Zhoushan Port is lined with cranes, freighters shuttle, and more than 300 container routes, becoming an important trade channel in Zhejiang and even the country. "Now we basically go to sea from Ningbo Port, the connection is smoother, the shipping date is more certain, saving time and worry." said Cao Xiaojian, general manager of Zhejiang Longshang Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd.
Turning our attention to Jiaxing, the sweater industry used to mainly rely on sea transportation or air transportation from other places for export, with high logistics costs and long delivery cycles. Gu Ninglu, the person in charge of the "Sweatshirt School" platform, said that relying on the international freight network woven by Jiaxing Nanhu Airport, sweater companies can achieve "small batches and multiple batches" of direct delivery to overseas markets. What aviation hubs bring is not a change in a single mode of transportation, but an upgrade space for the entire chain of production, trade and logistics.
Behind the prosperity, Zhejiang has vigorously promoted the construction of a world-class port, a high-level civil aviation province, and a China-Europe freight train assembly center in recent years, deepening the linkage of the "four ports" and improving its comprehensive ability to "link the world and radiate the country." At present, the province has cultivated 261 international shipping routes, 60 international all-cargo routes, and 27 China-Europe freight train routes, and a global open transportation system has taken shape.
There is another phenomenon that is also worth pondering - Zhejiang’s advanced experience in the transportation field is accelerating its “going overseas”. Not long ago, the 2026 International Maritime Navigation Senior Management Training Course and Risk Management Training Course successfully concluded in Wenzhou. During the training, more than 40 international trainees were amazed by Zhejiang's advanced technologies and practices in navigation aid management, maritime services, shipping operation and maintenance, etc.
Bwebweteiti Tongaiaba from the Pacific island country of Kiribati said frankly that the training was complete and focused, and he gained a lot. "After returning home, I will share the knowledge I learned in China with my colleagues."
Roads are connected and all industries are prospering. Zhejiang's transportation construction in the new era is an all-round reform that takes into account people's livelihood and well-being, industrial upgrading, regional coordination, and opening up to the outside world. As the construction of a strong transportation province continues to be deepened and solidified, Zhejiang will surely explore more new opportunities in that "old saying".
