Photos by Wei Yao, edited by Lu Yan

Every day Pei Rui, a 30-year-old project supervisor, goes to the construction site of the Beijing-Qinhuangdao Expressway in Beijing to inspect the work and discuss its progress with workers. Though Pei’s job title is director of the project management security department, he is actually in charge of all procedures of the Beijing leg of the project.

The Beijing-Qinhuangdao Expressway, planned to open to traffic in 2020, will link Beijing with Qinhuangdao, a port city in the northern Hebei Province. The construction started in November 2016.

Pei and his colleagues are in charge of the 6-km stretch in Beijing. Although it’s not a long segment, the work is difficult and urgent, which means a lot of pressure for the workers.

This summer, for instance, it rained a lot in the capital. To ensure the work progressed safely and the quality of the construction was maintained, the men had to wait for the rain to stop, which added to the difficulties in finishing the construction in time.

“I get anxious when it rains,” Pei said. “I have to then make sure that the delay is made up.”

The Beijing part of the expressway, one of the capital’s key projects this year, is intended to improve the expressway network and regional traffic conditions and the integration of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Once the new expressway is opened, the distance between Beijing and Qinhuangdao, which is also a famous tourist destination, will be halved, which will be around two hours.

Last year, the government announced it would be moving some of the municipal authorities’ functions to a satellite area east of Beijing, Once the sub-center in Tongzhou District is completed, it is expected to create heavy traffic in that direction. So the Beijing-Qinhuangdao Expressway will help ease the pressure.

Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar

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