Posted by meb at March 20th, 2009

The General Directorate of Highways has announced that it will hold a tender for the construction of a new highway stretching from the town of Gebze in the northwestern province of Kocaeli to the Aegean province of İzmir, including a bridge over the Gulf of İzmit, on April 9.

The project will be carried out through the build-operate-transfer method. Many Turkish and foreign firms have expressed interest in the tender, which has been postponed a number of times already. The directorate will ask companies submitting bids to specify how long they want to operate the bridge and highway. The firm that fulfils the conditions of the bid specifications and commits to the shortest period of operation will win the tender.

The Bursa-Balıkesir-İzmir highway will begin in the town of Gebze and cross to the town of Orhangazi in Bursa over the Gulf of İzmit. It will proceed from Bursa to the northwestern province of Balıkesir and end in İzmir. The highway will be 420 kilometers long and the suspension bridge on the İzmit Gulf will be 3,000 meters long.

Once the projects are finished, the time required to travel between Bursa and İzmir will be almost halved to two and a half hours.
source: Today’s Zaman

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