Recently, a number of "super projects" have been officially announced in the Yangtze River Delta and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

On June 30, the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Cross-Sea "Super Project," the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link, was completed and opened to traffic, with daily traffic exceeding 100,000 vehicles since its operation, maintaining high levels of operation.

On June 1, the "Yangtze River Delta Super Loop High-Speed Rail" was opened to traffic.

On May 26, the Guangfozhaoguanhui Intercity Railway, known as the "Bay Area No. 1 Subway," was opened, forming a "1-hour commuting circle."

Meanwhile, a number of new super infrastructure projects are already under construction or entering the planning stage. In the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, on April 2, the Hong Kong government approved the launch of the Hung Shui Kiu Railway Station project, which extends from Hung Shui Kiu Station in Hong Kong to Qianhai in Shenzhen. Construction is expected to begin this year and be completed by 2030.

There are currently four ongoing cross-sea projects at the Pearl River Estuary: the Huangmaohai Channel, the Shiziyang Channel, the Shenzhen-Jiangmen Railway (Pearl River Estuary Tunnel), and the Macao Light Rail Hengqin Line. The Shenzhen-Zhuhai Channel and the Lianhuashan River Crossing have been included in development plans. In the future, the entire Pearl River Estuary will have 11 cross-sea channels.

In the Yangtze River Delta, the Zhangjinggao Yangtze River Bridge, the world's largest span suspension bridge under construction, connects the cities of Suzhou, Taizhou, and Nantong in Jiangsu Province, addressing the dilemma of "Nantong not connecting to the south."

In the future, three more cross-sea channels will be built in Hangzhou Bay, including the ongoing Tongsujiayong Railway project, as well as the Shanghai-Ningbo Cross-Sea Megaproject and the Shanghai-Zhoushan-Ningbo Cross-Sea Megaproject, both of which were included in the national plan in 2022 with investments of hundreds of billions of yuan.

These super infrastructure projects are profoundly changing the urban landscape of the Yangtze River Delta and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, turning them into "super metropolises."

In contrast, Shandong, as a province with a population of 100 million and a strategic fulcrum for economic development in northern China, has lagged behind in promoting regional integration and cultivating "super metropolises" through mega projects.

In particular, the Jiaozhou Bay area, the most economically vibrant region in Shandong Province, lacks a "super project" that can transform the entire Jiaozhou Bay and even the economic landscape of Shandong Province, aside from the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge and Tunnel, which opened in 2011, and the second Jiaozhou Bay Tunnel, which is expected to open in December 2027.

The Jiaozhou Bay area needs a mega project to become a "super metropolis."

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Super infrastructure projects are transforming the Yangtze River Delta and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, including the Pearl River Delta, from "super city clusters" into "super metropolises" and "super provinces."

From a transportation perspective, the "Yangtze River Delta Super Loop High-Speed Rail," which starts from Shanghai and passes through Suzhou, Changzhou, Nanjing, Hefei, Huangshan, Hangzhou, and Jiaxing before returning to Shanghai, has a one-way mileage of over 1,200 kilometers, connecting Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui provinces into a "circle."

With the completion and opening of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link, the travel time between Shenzhen and Zhongshan will be reduced from about 2 hours to 30 minutes. At the same time, it adds a "crucial horizontal connection" to the 100-kilometer "Golden Inner Bay" of the Pearl River Estuary, superimposing the existing Humen Bridge (connecting Guangzhou and Dongguan) and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, forming an A-shaped transportation network in the "Golden Inner Bay."

Beyond promoting regional integration in transportation, the more significant value of these "super projects" lies in enabling deeper bidirectional empowerment of resources and industries between cities.

Taking the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link as an example, on the one hand, cities in western Zhuhai can leverage their land resource advantages to host industries spilling over from Shenzhen.

On the other hand, traditional industries with advantages in Zhongshan, such as hardware and home appliance industries, can integrate with the information technology industries in Shenzhen and Dongguan, jointly promoting emerging industrial chains worth trillions of yuan, such as smart home appliances.

In the "Opinions on Establishing a More Effective New Mechanism for Regional Coordinated Development" issued at the end of November 2018, it was proposed that China will establish a new model of central cities leading the development of urban agglomerations and urban agglomerations driving regional development in the future, promoting integrated and interactive development among regional plates.

The subtext is that China will enter an era of super metropolises, driving regional development through them.

Super metropolises have become the optimal solution for regional development.

For Shandong, it is urgent to promote regional integration and cultivate "super metropolises" through super infrastructure projects.

Among them, the Jiaozhou Bay area is the most dynamic and open region in Shandong, with multiple national strategies overlapping here. Both the national-level Qingdao Metropolitan Area and the provincial-level Jiaodong Economic Circle consider Qingdao, Weifang, and Rizhao as important components.

In terms of major economic indicators, in 2023, the combined GDP of Qingdao, Weifang, and Rizhao was 2.57 trillion yuan, accounting for about 28% of the province's total, making this region the easiest and fastest to give birth to cities with GDP exceeding 2 trillion yuan and the fourth trillion-yuan city in Shandong.

The permanent resident population of the three cities exceeds 22.7 million, accounting for about 22.43% of the province's total. The total import and export volume is about 1.35 trillion yuan, accounting for 41% of the province's total, close to half.

From the perspective of the recently popular "Institutional Strength Index," only Weihai (28.85%) and Qingdao (29.47%) in Shandong Province have an institutional strength index below 33%, indicating that their economic development does not rely on the "civil servant economy."

As the city with the least dependence on the "civil servant economy" and the most economic vitality, Qingdao's "pinnacle" image and core driving role in the Jiaozhou Bay regional economic landscape are becoming increasingly critical.

Weifang and Rizhao rank fifth and sixth, respectively.

These further highlight the status of the Jiaozhou Bay area as Shandong's most market-driven and economically vibrant city.

In other words, Qingdao, Weifang, and Rizhao in the Jiaozhou Bay area have the potential to become a super metropolis.

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However, for Jiaozhou Bay to become a "super metropolis," the most urgent task is to accelerate the construction progress of the Jiaozhou Bay Cross-Sea Railway.

On May 16, Wang Qingyuan, Deputy Secretary of the Qingdao West Coast New Area Working Committee and Mayor of Huangdao District, guested on the People's Livelihood Online and responded to questions about the "latest progress of the Jiaozhou Bay Cross-Sea Railway." After verification by the competent department, the Jiaozhou Bay Cross-Sea Railway project is led and promoted by municipal departments. According to the Qingdao Municipal Transportation Bureau, the Jiaozhou Bay Cross-Sea Railway is in the planning and research stage.

On May 17 last year, the "Qingdao Municipal Transportation Bureau Jiaozhou Bay Cross-Sea Railway Research Procurement Demand Announcement" was released, marking the initiation of preliminary research on the Jiaozhou Bay Cross-Sea Railway.

In Qingdao's major city plans, channels have always been reserved for the Jiaozhou Bay Cross-Sea Railway.

The "14th Five-Year Plan for Transportation Construction and Development in Qingdao West Coast New Area," issued by the West Coast New Area Management Committee Office in May 2022, further proposed to carry out preliminary research on the Jiaozhou Bay Cross-Sea Railway and outlined the general route of the line:

The line will exit Qingdao West Station and continue in a northeasterly direction, pass through Xiaozhushan Mountain, and set up Huangdao Station along Qichangcheng Road in underground form. The line will continue eastward in underground form across Jiaozhou Bay, build a new underground depot below Qingdao Station, and then continue northward in tunnel form to Qingdao North Station.

Accelerating the implementation of the Jiaozhou Bay Cross-Sea Railway plan is necessary on the one hand to meet the commuting needs between the eastern shore of Qingdao, the West Coast New Area, and cities along Jiaozhou Bay, and on the other hand, it involves the layout of Qingdao Railway Station. (Related reading: Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay Cross-Sea High-Speed Rail Finally on the Agenda) In addition, it is related to the construction timeline of the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Line 2.

According to the plan, the Weifang-Suqian section of the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Line 2, which has already started construction, and the Weifang-Suqian High-Speed Railway to Qingdao Connection Line project are both scheduled for completion in June 2028.

There is a problem here.

The Weifang-Suqian High-Speed Railway to Qingdao Connection Line is 108.78 kilometers long and has four stations: Yanghekou, Qingdao West, Zhunan South, and Wulian North.

This means that in the future, if the eastern shore of Qingdao wants to connect to the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Line 2, it will still need to bypass Jiaozhou Bay from Qingdao North Station or even Qingdao Station.

However, if the Jiaozhou Bay Cross-Sea High-Speed Railway is built, it can directly connect Qingdao Station to Qingdao West Station, significantly saving time.

And if the Qingdao-Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Auxiliary Channel Railway Project is scheduled to be completed in June 2028, the Jiaozhou Bay Cross-Sea High-Speed Railway will also need to pick up the pace.

In addition to the Jiaozhou Bay Cross-Sea High-Speed Railway, Qingdao's construction of the Qingdao-Rizhao High-Speed Railway is also imperative to strengthen its connections with other cities in Shandong, such as Rizhao and Linyi, and continue its exchanges with the Yangtze River Delta to the south.

For Qingdao, the most ideal way to travel south to Shanghai is still the coastal high-speed rail route of "Qingdao (Yantai)-Lianyungang-Yancheng-Nantong-Shanghai," which can truly shorten the journey to about 3 hours.

Apart from the coastal high-speed rail, the Hefei-Qingdao High-Speed Rail and the Wuhan-Qingdao High-Speed Rail, both under construction, are likely to eventually connect to Qingdao through the Qingdao-Rizhao-Lianyungang route.

Whether it is the coastal high-speed rail, the Hefei-Qingdao High-Speed Rail, or the Wuhan-Qingdao High-Speed Rail, the Qingdao-Rizhao-Lianyungang route plays a crucial role.

Although Qingdao and Rizhao are both actively advocating for it, the Qingdao-Rizhao High-Speed Railway still has no timetable.

Finally, planning for bottleneck sections of subway lines between adjacent cities, such as extending Qingdao Metro Line 8 to Gaomi and Line 11 to Haiyang, also needs to be accelerated.

According to media reports, the extension of Line 8 to Gaomi has been initially planned, Line 11 has reserved conditions for extension to Haiyang, Line 13 is being promoted to connect directly to Rizhao, and the planned Line 17 is expected to extend to Laiyang in the future.

It can be envisioned that once these mega infrastructure projects are implemented, they will significantly promote the flow of elements in the Jiaozhou Bay area, turning Qingdao, Weifang, Rizhao, and other most dynamic cities into a "super metropolis," becoming the most important source of economic growth for Shandong as a whole.