Wednesday May 29, 2013

Turkey begins work on giant third Bosphorus bridge

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (2nd from right), his wife Emine Erdogan (right), Turkish president Abdullah Gul (2nd from left) and his wife Hayrinusa Gul (left) attend the opening ceremony of the third Bosphorus bridge in Istanbul on Wednesday. 

 

ISTANBUL - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan laid the first stone on Wednesday for the third Bosphorus bridge, a multi-billion dollar construction project expected to create the world's widest overpass.

"When the project is completely finished, it will alleviate the burden of Istanbul, one of the world's most important transit corridors," Erdogan said at the groundbreaking ceremony.

The nearly $3 billion (2.3 billion euro) project includes a 10-lane road and rail suspension bridge - expected to be the world's widest at 59-metres (yards) - and a new highway linking Asia and Europe in the north of Istanbul, Turkey's largest city.

The project aims to ease traffic problems on the two existing bridges, which currently handle 600,000 vehicles a day, well above their combined capacity of 250,000, according to Turkey's highways authority.

Erdogan called on the Turkish-Italian consortium handling the project to finish work by May 29, 2015 - months earlier than originally planned - in time for the anniversary of Istanbul's conquest by Ottoman sultan Fatih Sultan Mehmet in 1453.

The bridge is one of a number of major construction projects aimed at modernising the face of Istanbul within a decade and transforming the city of 15 million people into a transport and financial hub.

President Abdullah Gul said the new bridge will be named after Sultan Yavuz Sultan Selim, the grandson of Fatih the Conqueror and also the first Ottoman caliph.

Traffic from both sides of the Bosphorus is also due to be connected later this year through a unique underwater tube tunnel Turkish officials say will be the world's deepest.

The government is currently working on a separate project to build "Kanal Istanbul," another strait to bypass the Bosphorus to ease the boat traffic in the narrow waterway. - AFP 

TheStar online Wednesday 29 May 2013.