马路拉链(mălù lāliàn): Zips on the roads

During his visit to Wuhan, the capital of Central China's Hubei province, on Tuesday, Premier Li Keqiang stressed the need to actively explore Public Private Partnerships to participate in the construction of sewers and the laying of underground pipes, in order to eliminate the "zips on the roads".

These "zips on the roads" refer to repeated construction and maintenance work done on urban roads, which not only impede urban transportation, but are also a huge waste of resources. According to a People's Daily survey in 2005, the cost of digging up one meter of urban road was 14,000 yuan ($2,135), and the cost will no doubt be much higher nowadays.

The phenomenon of "zips on the roads" is caused by uncoordinated construction and maintenance among various government departments.

Li pointed out that there is a large gap between China and developed countries in the use of underground urban space. The construction of underground sewer and pipe networks aims to solve this problem through unified and comprehensive use of the urban underground space, which indicates the improvement of urban management.