On June 30, 2008, the Sutong Yangtze River Bridge opened to traffic. The cable-stayed bridge spans 1,088 meters and integrates Nantong into a one-hour "traffic loop" with Shanghai. It boasts the world's two tallest bridge towers at 300.4 m, about the same as a 100-story building. The towers sit on the world's largest pier base, which is about the size of a football pitch and is anchored 80 m into the riverbed.
Nizar Alkayem from Syria is currently a postdoctoral researcher majoring in civil structure health monitoring at Hohai University in Nanjing. Talking about the Sutong Yangtze River Bridge, he said that "This bridge is an amazing structure. It is a very challenging engineering project, and the Chinese people should be proud of it." "The trip is very meaningful to me", he said and "The idea of the Go Jiangsu organization is to connect people, same as we come here to check the bridge which also connects people."