A joint venture between US contractor Bechtel and Turkish engineer Enka has won a contract tendered by the government of Serbia for a 112km motorway.
The dual carriageway will link the central Serbian towns of Pojate and Preljina, and will connect to the north-south motorway running between Hungary and North Macedonia. It will also link with trans-European corridors X and XI, which connect Austria with Greece and Italy with Romania.
Bechtel describes the development as "5G ready", since a "telecoms corridor" will be dug underneath the side of the road to allow for future 5G fibre and tower installations.
The Bechtel and Enka team will also build a flood defence system to protect the motorway and surrounding areas from water and erosion.
The road will cover mountainous terrain, which will require the building of up to 78 bridges up to 600m long. The project is expected to create around 10,000 construction jobs.
Zorana Mihajlovic, Serbia’s construction minister, said: "Construction of Moravian Corridor is in Serbia’s economic interest not only because it will connect more than half a million citizens living in the area, but because it will be the link for more than 20,000 small and medium-sized enterprises with the largest traffic corridors."
Construction of the motorway is due to begin in 2020 and is expected to take four years to complete.
Image: Right to left: Michael Wilkinson, Bechtel Infrastructure general manager for Europe, and Mehmet Tara, Enka President and Chairman, and Zorana Mihajlovic Serbia’s Minister of Construction (Bechtel)
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With the “5G” parellal coridor as not a supplement but as a evolving purpose, there is also a so far unmentioned tie into the development of the region via the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’. The old Chinese saying “If U want to go somewhere, build a road.” Is this not a sure fire way to burn a trail into the mining of the most valuable natural resource on the planet – Human Creativity?
As the cultural becomes tied more deeply into the science that carries the population into a sustainable, development of the area, perhaps a couple of new born “swadlings” – ‘Einsteins’ or ‘Vernadskys’ can drive their concepts into a realized future, either by wheels or wires (or plasmas).