As the relevant ministry told Euronews Serbia, in 2023, six sections of the corridors and two more high-speed roads will be completed.
Works on the city highway from Novi Belgrade to Surčin, as well as on the expressway that will connect Valjevo with the “Miloš Veliki” highway, are nearing completion. The construction of the Belgrade bypass to Bubanj Potok, as well as the section “Miloš Veliki” to Požega, the Moravian Corridor to Kruševac, the highway from Ruma to Šabac, as well as the section of the future highway to Sarajevo from Sremska Rača to Kuzmin and the first section of the auto-road from Niš to Pristina, near Merošina.
1. Novi Beograd-Surčin highway
The section from New Belgrade to Surčin, which should make the “Miloš Veliki” highway closer to the capital and more accessible to Belgraders, should, according to announcements from the Ministry of Construction, be completed in March.
This section is specific, among other things, in that, unlike previous highway construction projects, it passes through a populated, urban area, thus requiring a special construction technology, and it was announced that a bicycle and pedestrian path will be built along the road. path.
The route from New Belgrade to Surčinska Petlje should make the “Miloš Veliki” highway more accessible to residents of the central city municipalities, because they now have to travel on the Belgrade-Zagreb highway to the bypass around Belgrade in order to join the new road to Čačak. The city highway is designed for a vehicle speed of 80 kilometers per hour in a length of 7.9 kilometers. Three lanes in each direction, a five-meter dividing strip, two-meter-wide pedestrian paths and embankments are planned. There will be three bridges, one canal bridge and one overpass on the route.
A commercial contract with the Chinese company “China Communications Construction Company Ltd” for the construction of the section from New Belgrade to Surčin, worth 70.5 million dollars, was signed in August 2019, and it was then announced that it would be completed by November 2021. Works on this route they were supposed to start in March 2020, but the start of construction was delayed due to the corona virus epidemic. The works started a year later, in March 2021, with a construction period of 18 months.
Vesić announced that the eight-kilometer expressway between Novi Belgrade and Surčin will be completed in March, which will allow an easier and faster exit to the “Miloš Veliki” highway. This road, the minister emphasized, will shorten the journey for people living in New Belgrade and Zemun to the Miloš Veliki highway, and thus relieve the Belgrade – Šid highway.
2. Bypass around Belgrade
Displacing transit traffic from the capital is a dream that has lasted for more than three decades. In previous years, there was more talk than action, so the completion of this road is still awaited. The situation is certainly better than before, because the end of the works that should route the road from Batajnica to Bubanj Potok is finally in sight, which would finally connect this road with Corridor 10 in the full profile of the highway.
Work is currently underway on Sector 6, 9.6 kilometers long, and Minister Goran Vesić said that the section from Straževica to Bubanj Potok will be completed by the beginning of June, and then the entire transit will be moved from the city center.
“Then we have to contract the last 31 kilometers from Bubanj Potok to Pancevo, which will also include the construction of a road-railway bridge over the Danube near Vinča,” said Vesić.
3. Pakovrača – Požega
It was previously announced that the entire 30.9-kilometer section from Preljina to Požega would be completed by the end of 2021, so the promise was “shortened” to the first 12 kilometers to Pakovrača, which were put into traffic last year. The construction of the remaining twenty kilometers to Požega should be completed in the coming months, at the latest at the end of 2023.
The section is part of the E-763 highway, on the route of Corridor 11, towards the Serbian border with Montenegro, and the estimated value of the works is around 450 million euros . The contractor is the Chinese company CRBC.
The construction of three tunnels, 32 bridges, 11 overpasses and three interchanges is planned for this section. That section will connect Čačak, Lučane and Požega and two counties, Moravicki and Zlatiborski.
4. Moravian Corridor to Kruševac
When it comes to the Moravian Corridor, i.e. the highway from Pojata to Preljina that will connect corridors 10 and 11, the completion of Sector 1 Pojata-Kruševac of 27.4 kilometers is expected in 2023. According to MGSI data, the section from Pojata to Makrešan of 16.9 kilometers until March and the Makrešane-Koševi section of 10.5 kilometers until September 2023.
This road will connect all major settlements of central Serbia between Pojat and Čačak – Ćićevac, Stalać, Kruševac, Trstenik, Vrnjačka Banja, Kraljevo and Čačak, where about half a million inhabitants live. The length of the Moravian Corridor is 112.37 kilometers, 88 bridges and overpasses, 29 underpasses and 11 interchanges are being built on it, and the course of the Western Morava will also be regulated.
The works started at the end of 2019, they are being carried out by the Turkish-American consortium Bechtel Enka. The value of the project is 745 million euros. The road is designed for speeds of up to 130 kilometers per hour and will be the first domestic digital highway. Also, as previously announced, the Moravian Corridor will be the widest highway in Serbia.
5. Highway from Ruma to Šabac
According to announcements by the authorities, the section of the highway between Ruma and Šabac, with a bridge over the Sava, should be completed by autumn. The Ministry of Construction told Euronews Serbia that the opening of the Ruma-Šabac highway is expected in September 2023.
The total length of the road from Ruma to Lozniceja is 78 kilometers, of which the Ruma-Šabac highway is 22.08 kilometers long, and the length of the Šabac-Loznica section, which will be built in the profile of a high-speed road, is 55 kilometers.
A commercial contract for the design and execution of works on the Ruma-Šabac highway and the Šabac-Loznica expressway was concluded with the Azerbaijani company Azvirt, and the contracted price of the works is 467.5 million euros.
6. Sremska Rača – Kuzmin
By the end of 2023, the construction of the Sremska Rača – Kuzmin highway section, up to 19 kilometers long, with a four-lane Sava bridge, which will replace the old bridge, should be completed. It will be a part of the highway to Sarajevo and a connection with the highway Belgrade – Šid.
In the Republic of Srpska, the construction of the section from Rača to Bijeljina has started. In September, the construction of the first section of the highway that should connect this city in the Republic of Srpska with Serbia, which is part of the future highway Belgrade-Sarajevo, began in Bijeljina.
7. Niš-Merdare to Merošina
The Ministry of Construction announces that the construction of the first section of the Niš-Merdare highway, i.e. the Merošina-Merošina 1 interchange, will be completed in the middle of 2023, with a length of 5.5 kilometers. The construction of this 76.3-kilometer road began exactly one year ago.
The estimated value of the works is EUR 225 million, of which EUR 185 million was provided from loans from the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, EUR 40 million was EU aid, and EUR 30 million was provided from the Serbian budget.
The deadline for the completion of the works on the first section is 2026. 85 bridges and 18 kilometers of tunnels are planned for the entire section of the almost 77-kilometer-long highway to the Merdare administrative crossing. It is a part of the future Nis-Pristina-Durre highway with a length of 383 kilometers that will connect Serbia with the largest port in Albania and will represent the connection of Corridor 10 with Route 6 (Skopje-Priština) and Route 2b (Sarajevo-Podgorica-Wallona).
8. High-speed road to Valjevo
Work on the construction of the Iverak-Lajkovac high-speed road, which will connect Valjevo with the “Miloš Veliki” highway, began in the middle of 2019, and then it was announced that, when completed, from Belgrade it will take 35 minutes to travel to Valjevo. MGSI told Euronews Serbia that this should happen already at the end of the year, when it is expected to be put into traffic.
The total length of the section is 18.3 kilometers, and the works, which are carried out by the company “China Shandong” in accordance with the state agreement between Serbia and China, are worth 158 million euros. The expressway is designed for a speed of up to 100 kilometers per hour.
There will be 25 buildings on the route, one loop, a total of 19 bridges, the two longest of which are 1.5 kilometers long. The Iverak-Lajkovac expressway is part of the state road Loznica-Valjevo-Lazarevac and represents a transverse connection in the road network of Serbia and will connect parts of the Republic of Srpska, i.e. Bosnia and Herzegovina with the “Miloš Veliki” highway and Corridor 10, Kamatica reports.
