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Shanghai has an expansive grade-separated highway and expressway network consisting of 14 city elevated and surface expressways, 9 provincial-level expressways, and 8 national-level expressways. Several city highways and provincial-level expressways are also under construction.
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City Expressways
Most city expressways are found in the inner districts of Shanghai, including several elevated highways which run directly above surface-level roadways. In Chinese, these expressways are literally termed City High-speed Roadways (Chinese: 城市快速道路), but the maximum speed is usually 80 kilometres per hour (50 mph). These are still considered expressways or controlled-access highways because of the presence of ramps, grade-separated junctions, and the absence of traffic lights. Most of these expressways are elevated and run above a lower-speed roadway. Two city expressways, the Inner Ring Road and Middle Ring Road, are, or will be ring roads or beltways.
Provincial-level Expressways
Designations for provincial-level and federal-level expressways in Shanghai had the letter prefix A before the number of the expressway. Starting at the Yingbin Expressway, which was designated the number 1, the numbers increased clockwise around the city. For ring expressways, the designations A20, A30, A40, etc., were used. For expressways connecting to other provinces which already had national designations (beginning with the letter G), designations with the letter A were attached.
In August 2009, Shanghai replaced its system of naming expressways with the prefix A with the letter prefix S, in order to conform to the general designations for provincial-level highways. The S means Shengdao, or provincial-level roads. The letter prefix A was abolished.
National Expressways
National highways and expressways in Shanghai both have the prefix G, an abbreviation for Guodao (国道), which literally means National roads. It is important to note that both grade-separated, controlled-access expressways and normal at-grade highways both have the prefix G. Only the national-level expressways are mentioned here. National-highways which are at grade and not controlled-access are also found in Shanghai, and these include G204, G312, G318, and G320. Expressways also have green-coloured signs while their highway counterparts have red-coloured signs.
Yangtze River crossing
Shanghai has one bridge-tunnel crossing spanning the Yangtze Delta to the north of the city. The G40 Expressway follows the Shanghai Yangtze River Tunnel from Pudong to Changxing Island, and then over the Shanghai Yangtze River Bridge from Changxing to Chongming Island and finally via the Chongming–Qidong Yangtze River Bridge from Chongming to Qidong in Jiangsu Province on the north bank of the river.