The "Gates" of Western Serbia are opening soon

The "Gates" of Western Serbia are opening soon

"At this moment, the bridge is 80 percent completed and the works are going as planned. The bridge is 336 meters long and has ten spans, with the largest span of 36 meters. During the rainy and winter period, all the work done along the banks and the riverbed was extremely difficult ", Marjan Jerbic, the supervising engineer on the construction of the Preljina-Požega highway, stated to RINA.

This point of the construction site is one of the key points for the construction of section 3, so-called bypass around Čačak. For that reason, a provisional bridge was built in the vicinity of the bridge in order to enable communication on the entire stretch of this section.

"At this moment, 22 pillars and 22 main beams have been constructed, 103 out of 143 prefabricated girders have been installed and works on the pavement are being performed. Good cooperation of Chinese contractors with the Ministry of Construction certainly contributes to the good pace of works.

"They will soon end on this bridge, which is a big step towards the completion of the bypass around Čačak, which will contribute to relieving the volume of traffic that is currently passing through this city," said Jerbic.

The 30.9 km long route Preljina - Požega, is one of the most demanding routes currently built in Serbia containing numerous bridges, overpasses, and the longest tunnels in Serbia. In addition to the bridge over the West Morava, a 550 meters long bridge over the railway and a bridge in front of the entrance to the Trbušani tunnel (total length of 250 meters) are being built.

"Three bypasses have been added to the highway construction project, near Gornji Milanovac, Požega, and Užice, which have been waited for more than half a century. We will completely connect Western Serbia and this project is as huge as when the Belgrade-Bar railway was built. This whole area came to life and we will experience the similar only in the road infrastructure ", said the Minister of Transport Tomislav Momirovic.

According to the announcements of the contractor's representatives, the works on the entire route Preljina - Požega should be finished in January 2022. This section is also called the Gate of Western Serbia, and all those who doubted that a highway could be built on such terrains at all will soon be disillusioned and another dream will come true – it will be possible to get from Belgrade to the Montenegrin border in two hours and fifteen minutes.