Published : 14/09/2025

On 14th September 1993, China's Capital Airport Expressway was completed and opened to traffic.

The Capital Airport Expressway starts in the west from Sanyuan Bridge (三元橋) on the East Third Ring Road and ends in the east at the Capital Airport, with a total length of 18.735 kilometres.

The entire expressway is a six-lane dual carriageway, fully enclosed and with grade-separated interchanges, and has a design speed of 120 kilometres per hour. Along the route, there are eight interchanges, two river-crossing bridges, and nine channel bridges, and it is equipped with facilities for monitoring, toll collection and communication.

Along the Capital Airport Expressway, the Siyuan Bridge was built, which at the time was the largest interchange on China's urban roads; Covering an area of 50 hectares, this bridge is composed of 26 bridges of various sizes, with a total bridge length of 2.8 kilometres.

The construction standard of the Siyuan Bridge was the highest in China at the time; it is divided into six lanes with three in each direction, and there is also a three-metre-wide emergency stop lane on each side. The structural layer of the roadbed and pavement is as thick as 67 centimetres.

In addition, for safety purposes, the construction team also built numerous crash barriers on the road and installed isolation protective fences on the outer edge of the road land.

In addition to its structural design, the entire expressway project is also highly distinctive in its choice of materials. The base layer of the road used cement-stabilised gravel, which was the first time it had been used in Beijing at the time.

In addition to this, modified asphalt with good thermal stability was selected for the entire road surface asphalt concrete during construction, which was the first time this had ever been used in China.

As the "Top Road at the Nation's Gate", the Capital Airport Expressway took only 14 months from the start of construction to its full opening.

The completed Capital Airport Expressway not only has comprehensive monitoring, toll, lighting, communication, and maintenance management facilities along its entire length, as well as safety features such as anti-glare, signs, markings, guardrails, and protective netting, but it also has flood prevention and earthquake resistance capabilities.

50-metre-wide green belts have also been planted on both sides of the road, serving for greening, beautification, cooling, etc.