With the shoveling of the slates at North Street, the well-known ancient street at Zhujijiao, Shanghai, the comprehensive pipe-network transformation of the old section at Zhujiajiao has entered the most essential and most risky stage.

The transformation project aims at burying under the ground the 8 pipelines for sewage water, tap water, gas, power, telecommunications, cable TV, monitoring, and background music within the 2.4-square-kilometer old section. With a total investment of RMB0.26 billion yuan, the project involves the burying of 53.5 kilometers of pipelines, an endeavor finding no parallel in the transformation of ancient towns in the south of Yangtze River.