[photopress:logistics_new_road_to_Hotan_city.jpg,full,alignright]The second road across China’s largest desert has opened. The 424-km north-south highway runs across the Taklimakan Desert in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the names are the very stuff of romance. The road runs between the two important regional cities of Hotan and Aral by 550 km and cuts the traveling time by about seven hours.
The project cost RMB790 million ($107 million) and is expected to promote cargo and passenger traffic between the two cities. Hotan which is resource-rich and densely-populated and Aral, an underdeveloped new city on the northern edge of the desert.
The road was funded by the central government and construction began in June, 2005. It will provide easier access to the southwestern Tibet Autonomous Region as well as central and southern Asian countries such as Pakistan and Tajikistan.
The first highway across the Taklimakan, running 522 kilometers from Lunnan in the north, to Minfeng County in the south, was opened to traffic in 1995. However, vehicles bound for Aksu had to make a detour along the westernmost border of the desert.
Cao Jun, a veteran driver in Xinjiang said, ‘The new one is wider with less sharp turns than the first road, and the surface is very smooth,’
Making the road was not easy. About 96% of the highway runs through active sand areas and 82% was uninhabited and suffered from bad weather conditions. This is road making on a heroic scale.
Source: China.com