The Liuwu Bridge (} crosses the

Lhasa River The Lhasa River, also called Kyi Chu (, ), is a northern tributary of the Yarlung Tsangpo River in the south of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. The Yarlung Tsangpo is the upper section of the Brahmaputra River. The Lhasa River is subject to ...

linking downtown

Lhasa Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level city, prefecture-level Lhasa (prefecture-level city), Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Regio ...

, Tibet to

Lhasa railway station Lhasa railway station (, ) is a railway station in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, China. Location The railway station lies in Niu New Area, Doilungdêqên District, 1 kilometer to the south of the Lhasa River and 5 kilometers southwest of the P ...

and Niu New Area on the south bank. It was built in conjunction with the Qinghai–Tibet Railway, which terminates on the south side of the river, and provides a connection to the town center on the north side.

Location

The Liuwu Bridge links central Lhasa to Lhasa Railway Station and the newly developed Niu New Area of Doilungdêqên County on the south bank of the Lhasa River. Residents in the Ne'u area were resettled to make way for the new development. The "Liuwu New District" includes new residential buildings in traditional Tibetan style. The villagers, numbering almost 1,700, were moved into these buildings. The effect of the railway, bridge and Liuwu New District development has been urbanization and development of new enterprises such as transport, retail outlets and restaurants.

Construction

The Liuwu Bridge was built by

China Communications Construction China Communications Construction Company, Ltd. (CCCC) is a majority state-owned, publicly traded, multinational engineering and construction company primarily engaged in the design, construction and operation of infrastructure assets, including ...

. The construction project began in 2004. About 500 people worked on the bridge, but according to an ''

Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C ...

'' correspondent even the laborers engaging in sweeping and pushing wheelbarrows were almost all Chinese, since the chief engineer said Tibetans "do not have the technical training needed for the task." The bridge was completed in April 2007. It was opened to traffic on 1 May 2007. Total funding allocated to the project was RMB 388.51 million.

Structure

The bridge is one of the notable structures of the Qinghai–Tibet Railway, the highest railway in the world. It is the first urban overpass in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The total length is and the elevated section is . The main span has a duplex basket-handle arch with a heeling angle of 28.4 degrees and an arch length of . The piers of the main bridge use piled underground

diaphragm wall A slurry wall is a civil engineering technique used to build reinforced concrete walls in areas of soft earth close to open water, or with a high groundwater table. This technique is typically used to build diaphragm (water-blocking) walls surr ...

s. The bridge is wide, with three lanes in each direction. The structure includes the first cloverleaf junction in Tibet.

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * * {{refend Buildings and structures in Lhasa Bridges in Tibet Chengguan District, Lhasa Doilungdêqên District