Lótus Bridge, International road bridge between Zhuhai, China and Macau SAR.
Lótus Bridge is a 1,756-metre road bridge, 30 metres wide, with six lanes in total, linking the Cotai reclamation area of Macau to Hengqin Island in Zhuhai. It runs from Lotus Road beside the Cotai road network to the Macau side of the Hengqin checkpoint. Pedestrians are not allowed on the bridge.
Designed jointly by China Railway Siyuan Survey and Design Group and the Portuguese Macau government, the bridge was built with about 200 million yuan invested by Zhuhai and Macau. Work began on 29 June 1998; the Macau section was finished on 14 September 1999 and the Zhuhai section joined on 15 November 1999. It was inaugurated on 10 December 1999 by governor Vasco Rocha Vieira, incoming chief executive Edmund Ho and Xinhua's Wang Qiren, and opened to traffic on 28 March 2000 as the second land border crossing between Macau and Zhuhai.
The bridge's name comes from the Lotus flower, the symbol on Macau's flag and coins, and it gave its name to the Lotus checkpoint that preceded the current Hengqin port. Until 26 September 2023 only cross-border vehicles, buses, taxis and authorised coaches could use it; ordinary cars were admitted that afternoon, motorcycles and bicycles still are not.
The bridge is 8 kilometers from Macau International Airport and operates 24 hours daily for vehicle traffic. Drivers should know that traffic switches between right-hand and left-hand driving systems, managed through special transition roads.
The bridge features special transition roads that handle the switch between right-hand traffic on mainland China and left-hand traffic in Macau. This engineering solution makes it one of the few bridges connecting two opposite driving systems worldwide.
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