Grand opening of new 10 kilometers of highway on Tuesday

Public enterprise Autoceste Federacije Bosne i Hercegovine is organizing the grand opening of the highway from the Međugorje interchange to the Bijača International Border Crossing on Tuesday, September 16, reports the Patria News Agency.

Ensad Karić, Director of JP Autoceste FBiH, Vjekoslav Bevanda, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH, and Damir Hadžić, Minister of Communications and Transport in BiH, will address the attendees. A large number of representatives from the political, cultural, and public life in BiH, as well as international guests, have confirmed their attendance.

Before the official ceremony, a tour of the southern section will be organized, with the aim of adequately informing the BiH public, and to offer the best possible video recordings and photographs.

This section was recently mentioned in an article about the construction of the highway through BiH, specifically the problems and modern solutions on Corridor 5C passing through BiH, by author Guy Woodford in the world-renowned media outlet specializing in highway construction, "World Highways".

This section includes two bridges, Studenčica and Trebižat, one viaduct, Pavlovići, and the Bijela Vlaka tunnel.

- Due to the difficult terrain, a large number of tunnels and bridges have been built in Bosnia. The Austrian company Doka is participating in the construction, and the issue of the Studenčica and Trebižat bridges, which are to connect the valleys near the municipality of Čapljina, is being solved using a total of ten cantilever cranes - wrote Woodford.

- With a length of 555 meters from one retaining wall to another and a maximum height of 81 meters above the valley, Studenčica is the longer and higher bridge. Four superstructures are placed on a total of five pillars, each 12.4 meters wide, with a distance of 120 meters between them.

Trebižat, with its length of 365 meters and a maximum height of 59.5 meters, is a smaller bridge and requires only three pillars. For the construction of these bridges, Doka uses a total of ten cantilever cranes, eight of which are used on the Studenčica bridge and two on the Trebižat bridge. Thanks to Doka's cantilever cranes, the completion of the works was enabled eight weeks earlier - explained this author.

Work on this section began in June 2012, and the route was financed by an EBRD loan of 62 million euros. The works were carried out by the Czech JV OHL ŽS and the Bosnian-Herzegovinian company Niskogradnja from Laktaši.

With these ten kilometers, Bosnia and Herzegovina will have a total of 72 km of modern highway, writes NAP.