Hürriyet Daily News a écrit:Giant highway to boost regional economiesSunday, October 17, 2010
BURSA, İZMİR, KOCAELİ - Anatolia News AgencyTurkey’s largest-ever highway project, which will link Istanbul to İzmir, will reduce travel time to three hours from 6.5 hours. The highway is planned to be completed in seven years. Cities such as Kocaeli, Bursa, Balıkesir and İzmir, which are on the route of the highway, will experience a boom in exports, tourism, employment and social lifeThe $11 billion project will include the world's second-longest suspension bridge, to be built over the Gulf of İzmit. The bridge will be 3,000 meters long. Hürriyet photo
Reducing the travel time between Istanbul and İzmir – two of Turkey’s biggest cities – to three hours, the Gebze-Orhangazi-İzmir highway, to be
completed in 2017, will create huge changes in the economic and social life of a number of cities.
As the project links İzmir to both Istanbul and Europe, it will have a positive impact on İzmir’s economic and social development, according to Ekrem Demirtaş, board chairman of the İzmir Chamber of Commerce.
The Turkish government signed a build-operate-transfer deal on Sept. 27 this year with a consortium of six construction companies to carry out the country's largest-ever highway project. The $11-billion-project will include the world's second-longest suspension bridge, to be built over the Gulf of İzmit. The bridge will be 3,000 meters long.
İzmir has been a “dead-end street” for many years, according to Demirtaş, who said that with the construction of the highway, the city would complete its “highway, railway and marine transport” triangle. “Thanks to this project, transportation to İzmir will become easier. It will contribute to the city’s tourism and trade relations,” Demirtaş said.
If the construction begins concurrently from Istanbul and İzmir, the employment rate in İzmir will increase, mainly in the construction sector, according to Demirtaş. “Thanks to this project, transportation costs will decline, businesspeople from İzmir will easily reach Istanbul and Europe while the city will receive much more investment and tourists.”
Realizing potential in tourism
According to Demirtaş, if the travel time between Istanbul and İzmir is slashed from its current 6.5 hours, İzmir will be able to reach its annual tourism targets. “Our tourism centers, such as Çeşme, Seferihisar, Foça, Dikili and Bergama, will attract more tourists,” he said.
The İzmir-Gebze highway will contribute greatly to the social, cultural and economic life of cities on the route of the project, according to Mustafa Türkmenoğlu, coordinator of the Aegean Exporters Union.
Agricultural exports have a big share in the Aegean region’s total exports, Türkmenoğlu said. “This highway will provide many advantages to our exporters. The taste and quality of agricultural products will be protected and the costs will decline. Strong logistics is a must for exports,” he said.
Difficulties due to inadequate land links between Turkey’s large cities will come to an end with the project, according to Ender Yorgancılar, board chairman of the Aegean Region Chamber of Commerce. As well as connecting two industrial cities, the highway will also link economies of the Aegean region and the Marmara region, Yorgancılar said.
“İzmir has the potential to become an important logistics center thanks to its port,” said Yorgancılar, adding that road transportation is of crucial importance in Turkey. “This new highway project will pave the way for a new production and trade model.”
Increased immigration a problem
The travel time between Istanbul and Bursa, another industrial western city, will be between 60-90 minutes when the highway is completed. It will also reduce the travel time between Bursa and İzmir to around 150 minutes, according to Necati Şahin, head of Bursa branch of the Chamber of Civil Engineers. “Besides these positive aspects of the project, however, it will also increase migration to
Bursa. The city will become the backyard of Istanbul,” Şahin said.
According to data from the Transportation Ministry, a total of seven construction sites will be built during a 20-month period and the project will indirectly provide jobs for some 50,000 people. Speaking to Anatolia news agency, Nail Çiler, board chairman of the Gebze Chamber of Commerce, said the one-hour İzmit Gulf passage would be reduced to just six minutes. “The traffic density of the gulf will decline by 30 percent. People will gain time and reduce fuel consumption,” Çiler said.
The Marmaray Project, a rail transport project in Istanbul that starts from the Gebze district in Kocaeli province, the “Informatics Valley” project to be built in Kocaeli and the giant highway project have all increased the importance of the region, according to Çiler.