On August 14, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport announced that the Capital Airport Expressway expansion and upgrade project will officially commence at 11:00 PM on August 21, with main construction expected to be completed by the end of December. The project aims to enhance the expressway's traffic capacity, strengthen road safety resilience, and comprehensively improve transportation service levels.
The Capital Airport Expressway, stretching from the East Third Ring Road in the south to the Capital Airport in the north, has a main line of 18.4 kilometers. It serves as a key welcome route connecting the capital's core area with the airport and a vital window showcasing Beijing's image. As urban traffic demand continues to grow, the current road exhibits significant shortcomings in traffic capacity, landscape aesthetics, smart technology integration, and infrastructure condition, necessitating a systematic upgrade.
The upgrade project is built on the concept of "safe and smooth traffic, seasonal diversity, and digital empowerment," adhering to standards of "systematic design, refined construction, and smart control." It will drive improvements in road quality, landscape aesthetics, and smart transportation to comprehensively elevate the road's comprehensive service level. In terms of road quality, the project focuses on enhancing traffic efficiency and updating infrastructure by optimizing lane widths and addressing bottleneck points at the crossing with the Beijing Suburban Railway Northeast Ring Line. It will also repair 720,000 square meters of main road pavement, update 86,000 linear meters of curbstones, eliminate 19,000 linear meters of cable pipelines, and repurpose 89,000 linear meters of guardrails along the route to improve traffic quality and safety resilience.
For landscape enhancement, the project aims to create an ecological corridor for the garden city. In line with the requirements for building a garden city in the capital, the project will integrate green spaces both within and outside the road area for a unified upgrade, planting seasonal greenery to create a multi-layered ecological landscape. It will implement green landscape improvements covering 221,000 square meters and add 3,114 elevated flower boxes. The central median will combine climbing roses with landscape flower boxes, while green spaces inside and outside the protective net will be color-enhanced, accompanied by a smart irrigation system to achieve a "flowers in spring, scenery in autumn, and distinct seasons" effect. Additionally, the project will unify the color of bridges and poles along the route, consolidate traffic sign poles, and purify the driving view corridor, forming a visually coherent, seasonally distinct, dignified, and grand visual corridor.
In smart transportation, the project will build a smart corridor for the Capital Airport Expressway centered on "road network connectivity and data sharing." It will upgrade three major electromechanical systems (monitoring, communication, and toll collection), expand power supply capacity for roadside substations, and deploy 83 smart sensing points to form a comprehensive graded sensing network. It will optimize 51 traffic management and science facilities to establish an integrated "sensing-decision-response" emergency command chain.
To minimize the impact on commuters traveling to and from the airport and residents in the northeastern part of the city, the project will implement a refined construction management process throughout. Measures include staggered work hours, phased traffic guidance, and remote diversion to ensure smooth road network operations. Construction will primarily take place between 11:00 PM and 5:00 AM daily, with the standard construction phase adopting a "three lanes occupied, one lane open" approach (occupying three inner or outer lanes and leaving one lane for traffic), while daytime traffic will be restored. For quality assurance during asphalt concrete paving and bridge deck renovation, short-term full-width road closures will be implemented, accompanied by diversion plans to guide transit vehicles to auxiliary roads and surrounding expressways, minimizing the impact on social traffic.
During construction, some bridges in the Siyuanqiao area will undergo full ramp closures over three weekends (August 29-30, September 5-6, and September 12-13). The Tianzhu Toll Station will be divided into four phases over 50 days (August 21 to October 9), using a zonal continuous construction model (occupying 4-5 of 15 lanes each time). Throughout the construction period, real-time travel information, including construction sections, lane closure durations, and detour routes, will be issued via road information screens, navigation platforms, traffic radio, and remote warning signs to guide the public to plan their routes in advance and divert remotely.
For specific detour routes, vehicles heading toward the city center can use Tianbei Road to access Jingmi Road or Jingmi Expressway. Vehicles heading to the airport can choose three detour routes: first, via Jingmi Road or Jingmi Expressway, Tianbei Road, and Freight Road to the Capital Airport; second, via Jingmi Road or Jingmi Expressway to Jingping Expressway, then to Airport Second Expressway, via Gangshan Road and Airport West Road to the Capital Airport; third, via Jingmi Road to Airport Auxiliary Road, then via Airport West Road to the Capital Airport. The transport department reminds the public traveling to and from the Capital Airport or the northeastern Chaoyang area to check real-time traffic information in advance and plan their travel time and routes reasonably.