Serve the Rural Ecology and Livability, Upgrade Efficient Governance Capability and Improve the Affluence of Living. High-Quality Development Pilot of Jiangsu’s Four Good Rural Road Achieves Notable Results
The high-quality development pilot of Jiangsu’s Four Good Rural Road aims to promote quality upgrading to support the rural thriving businesses, improve the transportation to serve the rural ecology and pleasant living environments, strengthen the cultural construction to help promote social etiquette and civility, enhance management and maintenance upgrading to strengthen effective governance, and enhance the provision of services to improve the level of living in prosperity. Within three years, expected goals of the pilot should be fully completed, the rural road construction, management, maintenance and transportation system in Jiangsu should be established, the development of rural roads should be coordinated with the marching of industry, ecology and culture, and significant results should be achieved in “rural roads +”, “Road Chief Scheme”, automatic detecting and the integrated development of passenger transport, cargo delivery and postal express in rural area, and the relevant practices should be included in the typical cases of the Ministry of Transport.
Main Experiences and Practices
Creating 82 county rural road brands
Accelerate the establishment of a clear, scientific and standardized rural road responsibility system. Jiangsu provincial government has set up leading groups for the construction of Four Good Rural Road and Road Chief Scheme; issued and implemented Jiangsu Rural Road Regulations to fully establish road chief scheme at three levels of counties, townships and villages.
Build a smooth, convenient and interconnected rural road network system. The provincial rural roads have basically realized the planned development of villages with the smooth connection with their important industries, tourism, traffic nodes and classified highway, taking the lead in completing the full coverage of two-lane four-level highway in administrative villages.
Create a rural road brand that boosts integrated development and serves revitalization. 82 county rural road brands have been created, forming a number of integrated development models, such as “rural road +” in industry, ecology, culture.
Improve the rural roads safety system with the characteristics of synergy, normalcy and long-lasting efficiency. The Jiangsu Provincial Government has issued the Opinions on Strengthening Rural Road Traffic Safety, established a regime for the presence of relevant party and government leaders in cities and counties in the event of traffic accidents, established four mechanisms for co-management and co-administration of highway safety by the provincial, municipal and county levels of the transportation and public security departments, and dynamically carried out the investigation and remediation of hidden dangers on rural roads.
Established the rural road service that integrates urban and rural areas and includes both passengers and goods. Yixing, Yangzhong have been built as national demonstration counties for urban and rural transportation integration and eight logistics brands have been honored as the Excellent Rural Logistic Service by the Ministry of Transport. We have released construction standards for intelligent platform—one network and one platform on rural road construction, maintenance and transportation, to promote the usage of one unified map in the whole provincial urban and rural areas when the public transport operations and schedule, to provide intelligent information services with one network", and to bring convenience for residents travel with one common card.
Phased Achievements
Smoother, safer, more beautiful and prosperous for the people
Smoother. The average time from townships to state and provincial roads has been shortened to 20 minutes, administrative villages to county roads shortened to 12 minutes, and natural villages to classed highways shortened to 6 minutes.
Safer. Essential safety has been further enhanced, essentially achieving full coverage of safety protection for key road sections such as village roads with concentrated passenger and student transportation, sharp bends, steep slopes, and areas near water and cliffs.
More beautiful. It has been basically achieved that every township has beautiful rural roads. The "No. 1 Road" in Liyang and the Huan Taihu Lake Road have been awarded the title of Top Ten Most Beautiful Rural Roads. The Qianduo Meilu Road in Xinghua, the Daweijian Road in Lianyungang, and the 1st line of the tourism road in Yancheng's Dongtai section have been honored as the Most Popular Roads nationwide. The Dantang line in Tongshan District of Xuzhou and the Guōyún line in Lishui District of Nanjing have been listed as Beautiful Rural Roads in China.
Greater prosperity for the people. Basic coverage of village public transportation has been achieved; leading the way in achieving full coverage of "delivery services to villages" at the provincial level, supporting the upgrading of rural consumption demand; providing 45,900 jobs for the maintenance of Four Good Rural Road, achieving an average annual income of about 50,000 yuan per person; rural tourism receives over 300 million visitors annually, with tourism revenue exceeding 100 billion yuan.
Typical experience
Two provinces and four cities jointly build high-quality rural roads that are properly built, operated, managed, and maintained as the demonstration road around Taihu Lake.
The Huantaihu Road stretches 416.2 kilometers, including 286 kilometers in Suzhou, 71 kilometers in Wuxi, 7.6 kilometers in Changzhou, and 51.6 kilometers in Huzhou. Two provinces and four cities of Jiangsu and Zhejiang integrate the building of high-quality rural roads around Taihu Lake as the demonstration road. The building has achieved a deep integration of rural roads with agricultural and rural development, rural revitalization, regional cultural promotion, and revolutionary traditions preservation. This has created a model in Jiangsu and Zhejiang for rural roads to fully support rural revitalization and accelerate building China’ s strength in transport.
In November 2020, two provinces and four cities jointly signed the framework agreement for building of integrated national high-quality rural roads around Taihu Lake as the demonstration road. In March 2021, the Joint Meeting mechanism for the building of integrated national high-quality rural roads around Taihu Lake as the demonstration road clarified the member units, main responsibilities, organizational forms, etc.
Centering on the creation of demonstration roads in their respective jurisdictions, the four cities have taken a series of actions and measures, especially strengthening three-tiered coordination at city, district/coutry, township/village levels, further deepening the linkage between the highway department and local tourism, waterway and other departments. The four cities jointly carried out the compilation of the implementation plan for the demonstration road, forming a detailed task allocation table and implementation plan at the district and county level.
Specific improvement
Expanding tourism service functions
The building of high-quality rural roads around Taihu Lake expands the tourism functions of facilities along roads, and tourist attractions, vacation areas and ancient water towns as important nodes. Facilities like waiting shelters, staging posts, viewing platforms, and parking lots are set up in areas along the road with ample space. Among them, more than 30 road staging posts are set up, achieving full coverage within 30 minutes. In rural areas with suitable conditions, the plan and construction of parking areas, homestays, and agri-entertainment facilities near rural roads are carried out, enabling travelers to take the route around the Huantaihu road, enjoy the Taihu Lake scenery, and experience the Wu and Yue cultures, thus building a multiple-sectored, well-coordinated ‘quick access, slow travel’ road network around Taihu Lake with the national and provincial trunk road networks.
Public Transport Network Accessibility
In the Taihu Lake area, especially between cities, inter-city bus services, scenic area (resort area) special lines, and rural tour express buses have been opened. The focus is on opening 8 adjacent public transport routes, increasing the coverage of the Taihu Lake road public transport network to 90%. This significantly improves the accessibility and convenience of the Taihu Lake area.
Driving the combined development of industrial project portfolio
The Huantaihu Road connects scenic spots, characteristic towns, and the birthplaces of revolutionary culture into a line, and loops into a plane. It integrates industrial projects like rural industrial bases, tourist attractions, rural complexes, characteristic towns, and rural tourism for combined development, actively exploring the implementation of new models like 'Rural Road+' characteristic industries, rural tourism, and e-commerce logistics. Along the road it has fostered an emerging industry of 'migratory bird-style' retirement that integrates health services, travel, leisure and cultural entertainment.
Source from: China Traffic News