Highway Which Will Connect Serbia and BiH – What Remains to Be Built on Section from Kuzmin to Sremska Raca?

Serbia should get its thousandth highway kilometer by the end of this year, the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure announces, as the completion of the works on the new 83 kilometers is expected. There are works on the sections Kosevi-Trsteni, Adrani-Preljina, Pakovrace-Pozega and Kuzmin-Sremska Raca, a part of the highway which will connect Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

While we were waiting for the BiH side to determine the route of the highway from Sarajevo to the border with Serbia, which slowed down the realization of the decades-old idea, the works on the Serbian side were well on their way.

The PE Roads of Serbia says that the works on all the structures on the section from Kuzmin to Sremska Raca are close to completion, after which the paving is to begin.

– On these 17-18 kilometers, there is a big bridge on the river Sava – 1,320 meters, so a major capital structure. In addition to that, there are another eight bridges, 11 culverts, five overpasses, two interchanges – Bosut and Kuzmin, where the connection to this part of the highway will be located. So in principle, it’s not so simple – says Dragan Jocic, the supervisory organ at the PE Roads of Serbia.

On the first direct highway between Serbia and BiH, Republika Srpksa, there will also be a single, joint border crossing on the Serbian side.

The plan is for it to be put into operation in 2025, when the works on the part of the road to Bijeljina, which is financed by the Government of Serbia, are finished. The contractor is the Turkish company Tasyapi, whose operating problems, according to those in charge, will not affect the projects in Serbia.

– In this situation, when it comes to the construction of the Sremska Raca-Kuzmin highway, of course there are problems. The Turkish company Tasyapi is the contractor, but we are solving those problems every day with the competent ministry, so that the project would be completed within the targeted deadline – says Miodrag Poledica of the PE Roads of Serbia.

In addition to connecting all the parts of the country, the development of the road network contributes to decentralization and economic development.

– Each kilometer of the road, each bridge, brings people closer together, brings the coasts closer together, accelerates the flow of goods, services, people, ideas and everything else. It enables what can be built next to the infrastructure, so in any case, these are very significant things – says Dragan Jocic.

– With the construction of new road routes, by connecting the parts of the country which have not been connected before, we will achieve the decentralization of the country and enable the economic development of those parts of the country which have not been connected by that kind of a traffic route – notes Dalibor Pesic of the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering in Belgrade.

The Kuzmin-Raca section, 18 kilometers long, with the bridge on the Sava, is designed for a speed of 130 kilometers per hour, with two lanes in each direction and one emergency lane.

The completion of the works on the section from Kuzim to Sremska Raca is expected by the end of the year. And the full exploitation of the highway, of geostrategic importance, which will connect Belgrade and Sarajevo, will depend on the intensity of the works in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Ministarstvo građevinarstva, saobraćaja i infrastrukture Republike Srbije

JP Putevi Srbije Beograd

Vlada Republike Srbije

Tasyapi doo Beograd

Saobraćajni fakultet Beograd

Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure

PE Roads of Serbia

Government of Serbia

Tasyapi

Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering Belgrade

Dragan Jocić

Miodrag Poledica

Dalibor Pešić

Serbia Sarajevo highway

Kuzmin Sremska Rača section

bridge on the river Sava

joint border crossing Serbia Republika Srpska