Approval has been given for a bridge connecting Shanghai’s Chongming Island and Jiangsu Province. The plan is part of a regional strategy to further integrate Shanghai with neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.

The bridge will span 7 km of the Yangtze River, linking Shanghai’s Chongming Island to the city of Qidong in Jiangsu.

The Shanghai section will be linked to an ongoing project connecting mainland Shanghai with Chongming Island by tunnel, bridge and expressway.

It is hoped that it will be completed by 2009 when it will cut travel time between Pudong and Chongming to 20 minutes. It would also cut travel time between Shanghai and Qidong to just over an hour and put any major city in Jiangsu Province within three hours’ drive from the municipality.

According to the city’s Labor Daily, construction on a bridge between Chongming and Qidong would officially start next year and finish in 2010. The construction would eventually become part of a highway network connecting Shanghai and Xi’an, Shaanxi Province.