Daily Blog
Friday, 27 November 2009 12:11
Written by Phil Boyle

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With two new road tunnels in Shanghai, Pudong and Puxi just got a whole lot closer together

So most of us in Urbanatomy Shanghai hold a certain Puxi bias. The office is here. My local sandwich shop is here. Enoteca is around the corner serving up wine at less than RMB 100 a bottle... Why would one ever want to leave the luxurious confines of the French Concession and Puxi to go to the dark side of Pudong?

Well now at least it's becoming a hell of a lot easier. Last week saw the partial opening of two more vehicle tunnels going from Puxi to Pudong (or, for those on the dark side, Pudong to Puxi) making it a hell of a lot quicker to get from one side of the Huangpu River to the other. Soon, those annoying waits and traffic as everyone gets off the Yan'an Highway and filters into the Yan'an tunnel will be gone as there'll be a myriad of tunneling options. Now that's exciting.

I know I know, you're already wetting your pants in anticipation of your first new tunnel experience...

The two newbies are the Xinjian Lu and Renmin Lu tunnels that have both opened up a couple of lanes of traffic each before their grand openings in January. With these two tunnels and more over the next year in time for, yes, the Expo, there will be apparently 94 lanes of traffic going over the bridges and tunnels crossing the Huangpu. Nice.

Maps (oh yes, maps) of the tunnels below...

The Renmin Lu tunnel connects the South Bund to Lujiazui from Puxi's Henan Lu to Pudong's Dongchang Lu. While the Xinjian Lu one connects the North Bund to Lujiazui from near Puxi's Yuhang Dong Lu to Tangshan Lu near Gaoyang Lu in Pudong. But be warned, right now you can only travel from Puxi to Pudong on that one at the moment - there's no coming back, so take your sandwiches and hip flask, you may be stranded forever...

Even the Yan'an highway has finally opened it's new extended bit that almost hits the Bund so at least you can get to Laris on a Thursday night to sip Martinis and be surrounded by people who need to be surrounded... And yes, there's a new tunnel opening at the end of there too next year.

But what about the mess that is the Bund? Well, apparently you'll have to wait until March 31 for the official re-opening and under-the-Bund-tunneling-road-with-fancy-pedestrian-area action. But hey, that's only four months, in the meantime you can just spend your time going from one tunnel to the next getting a tunnel hard-on like a badger on heat.

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