Tirana–Elbasan Highway

Tirana–Elbasan Highway
Rruga Tiranë-Elbasan
Route information
Length: 26 km (16 mi)
Major junctions
From: Tirana
To: Elbasan
Highway system
Highways in Albania

The Tirana–Elbasan Highway is a four-lane highway in Albania still in construction, but inaugurated on 16 June 2013. It covers the distance between the cities of Tirana and Elbasan in the shortest way possible and its total length is 26 kilometres (16 mi).[1] The highway is part of the planned A3 motorway of Albania.

Financing

Krraba Tunnel

$223M from the Islamic Bank for Reconstruction has partly financed the road construction.[1] The total construction cost is calculated at $400M.[2] Other banks financing the highway are the OPEC fund, the Abu Dhabi fund, and the Saudi Fund for development.[3]

Characteristics and Krrabë tunnel

The most important tunnel is the Krrabe Tunnel, whose length is about 4.9 km.[4] The construction for the entire route from Tirana to Elbasan was finalized as projected for June 2013 (18 months construction time). The highway was inaugurated by the Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha on Sunday June 16, 2013. As of August 2016 the Tirane - TEG and Krrabe Tunnel - Elbasan segments are fully functional. The Mullet - Ibe segment is only functional on one side of the highway while the TEG - Mullet and Ibe - Krrabe Tunnel segments are still under construction. Also, due to safety concerns, the Krrabe Tunnel is only allowing traffic to flow on one lane per direction.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/17/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.