The Pirinkayalar Tunnel, which has strategic and economic importance connecting Turkey to the Caucasus, was put into service with a ceremony held on Wednesday, December 29. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attended the ceremony, which was inaugurated by Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Adil Karaismailoğlu and General Director of Highways, Abdülkadir Uraloğlu, and made a speech via live connection.
Starting his speech by wishing the Pirinkayalar Tunnel to be beneficial, President Erdoğan stated that the tunnel on the Erzurum-Artvin road is one of the most important elements of the project to make the transportation between the Southern and Eastern Anatolia Regions and the Black Sea Region uninterrupted.
“The tunnel will be part of national and international connections”
Expressing that the tunnel, which will reduce carbon emissions by 18 tons, will also contribute to the protection of the environment, in addition to saving nearly 230 million annually, President Erdoğan said, “The ease of transportation between Erzurum and Artvin provinces, both of which have high tourism potential, with this tunnel will bring new opportunities. This tunnel, which will integrate Erzurum and Artvin Airports and Artvin Port with each other, will also relieve transit traffic to the Caucasus via both cities. I congratulate all our institutions, contractors, engineers and workers who contributed to the acquisition of the Pirinkayalar Tunnel in our country and region. I wish fruitful, peaceful, safe and comfortable journeys to our citizens who will travel using this tunnel.”
“One of the areas in which we have invested the most in the last 19 years is transportation”
Pointing out that one of the most invested areas in the past 19 years is transportation projects, Erdoğan said, “We have increased the length of our country's divided highways from 6 km to 100 km. In addition, we brought 28 thousand 473 km of high standard single road to our country. We increased our highway length from 14 km to 516 km. On all these roads, we built tunnels, the total length of which we increased from 1.714 km to 3 km, bridges and viaducts, which we increased from 532 km to 50 km. With these works we have made, we have left neither impassable mountains, impassable valleys, nor impassable rivers in our country.” used the phrases.
Speaking at the ceremony, Minister Karaismailoğlu noted that the Pirinkayalar Tunnel will ease the Pirinkayalar passage, which is located in a difficult topography, has 22 steep and narrow bends, and the traffic flow is interrupted in severe winter conditions.
“Our tunnel shortens the transportation distance on the existing line by 680 meters and reduces the transit time from 20 minutes to 5 minutes”
Karaismailoğlu, who noted that the crossings, which challenge drivers and whose danger increases especially in winter, will become history, and gave the following information about the Pirinkayalar Tunnel: “Since the area where our project was made is a 1st degree natural protected area, we worked with high environmental sensitivity. Pirinkayalar Tunnel is a project with a total length of 2.272 meters, with a tunnel length of 1.070 meters and a connection road length of 3.342 meters. Our tunnel shortens the transportation distance on the existing line by 680 meters, while reducing the transit time from 20 minutes to 5 minutes.”
Expressing that they have increased the length of tunnels on highways from 19 kilometers to 13 kilometers by 50 times in the last 639 years, Minister reminded that before 2002, there were a total of 50 kilometers of tunnels across Turkey.
“Our roads also add vitality to the production, tourism and trade of the region”
Explaining that the 56-kilometer-long tunnels in Yusufeli will also be completed, Karaismailoğlu said, “With our projects, we are increasing the capacity of the sea, road and international logistics of the two cities by safely connecting Erzurum, Artvin, the Black Sea coastal road, Artvin Port, Sarp Border Gate.” he said.
Our Minister Karaismailoğlu and our General Manager Uraloğlu passed the tunnel, which was opened by cutting the ribbon, with a vehicle.
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