YAVUZ SULTAN SELİM BRIDGE

Bosphorus, İstanbul - Turkey



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The Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge (Turkish: Yavuz Sultan Selim Köprüsü), initially named the Third Bosphorus Bridge, is a project to construct a bridge for rail and motor vehicle transit over the Bosphorus, north of two existing bridges in Istanbul, Turkey.

The bridge will be situated between Garipçe in Sarıyer on the European side and Poyrazköy in Beykoz on the Asian side. The foundation stone laying ceremony was held on 29 May 2013.

The bridge is part of the projected 260 km (160 mi) long Northern Marmara Motorway (Turkish: Kuzey Marmara Otoyolu), which will bypass urban areas of Istanbul in the north connecting Kınalı, Silivri in the west and Paşaköy, Hendek in the east. The 58.4 m (192 ft) wide bridge will be 2,164 m (7,100 ft) in length with a main span of 1,408 m (4,619 ft). The main span of the bridge will be eighth-longest among suspension bridges in the world.

Designed by French engineer Michel Virlogeux and by Jean-François Klein from T-ingénierie (a Geneva-based company), the bridge will be a combined road-rail bridge. It will carry four motorway lanes and one railway line in each direction. The construction is being carried out by a consortium of the Turkish company İçtaş and the Italian company Astaldi that won the bid on 30 May 2012.

The budgeted cost of the bridge's construction is Turkish lira 4.5 billion (approximately US$2.5 billion as of March 2013). The construction was originally expected to be completed in 36 months with the opening date scheduled for the end of 2015. On 29 May 2013, Prime Minister Erdoğan directed the construction management team to finish the construction within 24 months, and projected an opening date for May 29, 2015.

When completed, the Third Bosphorus Bridge will be the longest combined motorway/railway bridge in the world and the world's eighth-longest suspension bridge. The bridge toll is set to be US$3.00 (approximately Turkish lira 6.70 as of February 2014) between the motorway exits Odayeri and Paşaköy. It is expected that at least 135,000 vehicles will use the bridge daily in each direction.

Minister of Transport and Communication stated that of the total area to be nationalised for the bridge project, 9.57% is currently private property, 75.24% is forested land, and the remaining 15.19% is already state-owned land.

The name of the bridge was announced by President Abdullah Gül at the ground-breaking ceremony as the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, in honor of Ottoman Sultan Selim I (c. 1470–1520), who expanded the Ottoman Empire into the Middle East and North Africa in 1514-1517 and obtained the title of Caliph of Islam for the Ottoman dynasty after his conquest of Egypt in 1517.

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FATİH SULTAN MEHMET BRIDGE

Bosphorus, İstanbul - Turkey



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The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, also known as the Second Bosphorus Bridge (in Turkish: Fatih Sultan Mehmet Köprüsü, F.S.M. Köprüsü or 2. Köprü), is a bridge in Istanbul, Turkey spanning the Bosphorus strait (Turkish: Boğaziçi). When completed in 1988 it had the 6th longest suspension bridge span in the world; in 2012 it is 17th.

The bridge is named after the 15th century Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, who took Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453 and ended the Byzantine Empire. It carries the European route E80, Asian Highway 1 and Otoyol 2 highways.

Location
The bridge is situated between Hisarüstü (European side) and Kavacık (Asian side). It is a gravity-anchored suspension bridge with steel pylons and vertical hangers. The aerodynamic deck is hanging on double vertical steel cables. It is 1,510 m long with a deck width of 39 m. The distance between the towers (main span) is 1,090 m and their height over road level is 105 m. The clearance of the bridge from sea level is 64 m.

Construction
The bridge was designed by Freeman Fox and Partners and Botek Bosphorus Technical Consulting Corp., who had previously also designed the Bosphorus Bridge. An international consortium of three Japanese companies (including IHI Corporation and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries), one Italian (Impregilo) and one Turkish company (STFA) carried out the construction works.

The bridge was completed on July 3, 1988 and opened by Prime Minister Turgut Özal who drove his official car by himself as the first to pass. The cost of the bridge amounted to USD 130 million.

Transportation
The bridge is on the Trans-European Motorway between Edirne and Ankara. The highway bridge has four lanes for vehicular traffic plus one emergency lane in each direction. On weekday mornings, commuter traffic flows mostly westbound to the European part, so five of the eight lanes run westbound and only three eastbound.

Conversely, on weekday evenings, five lanes are dedicated to eastbound traffic and three lanes only to westbound. No pedestrians are allowed to use the bridge. Nowadays, around 150,000 vehicles are passing daily in both directions, almost 65% being automobiles.

Toll collection
Fatih Sultan Mehmet is a toll bridge, but payment is required from only the vehicles passing from Europe to Asia (as in the First Bosphorus Bridge, no payment is required while passing from Asia to Europe.) Since April 2008, cash payments are no longer accepted, having been replaced by a remote payment system.

In addition to OGS the contactless smart card KGS system is in use. An OGS device or KGS card can be obtained at various stations before the toll plaza of highways and bridges.

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15 JULY MARTYRS BRIDGE

Bosphorus, İstanbul - Turkey



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The 15 July Martyrs Bridge, also called the First Bosphorus Bridge (Turkish: Boğaziçi Köprüsü or 1. Boğaziçi Köprüsü) is a bridge in Istanbul, Turkey spanning the Bosphorus strait (Turkish: Boğaziçi). The bridge is located between Ortaköy (European side) and Beylerbeyi (Asian side). It is a gravity anchored suspension bridge with steel pylons and inclined hangers.

The aerodynamic deck is hanging on zigzag steel cables. It is 1,510 m long with a deck width of 39 m. The distance between the towers (main span) is 1,074 m (World rank: 15th) and their height over road level is 105 m. The clearance of the bridge from sea level is 64 m. It was the 4th longest suspension bridge span in the world when completed in 1973, and the longest outside the United States of America.

History
The decision to build a bridge across the Bosphorus was taken in 1957 by Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. For the structural engineering work, a contract was signed with the British firm Freeman Fox and Partners in 1968. The bridge was designed by the famous British civil engineer Sir Gilbert Roberts who also designed the Humber Bridge, Severn Bridge, Forth Road Bridge, Auckland Harbour Bridge and the Volta River Bridge.

The construction started in February 1970, the ceremonies were attended by President Cevdet Sunay and Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel. The construction was carried out by the Turkish firm Enka Construction & Industry Co. along with the co-contractors Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Co. Ltd. (England) and Hochtief AG (Germany). 35 engineers and 400 men worked on the project.

It was completed on October 30, 1973, one day after the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey, and opened by President Fahri Korutürk and Prime Minister Naim Talu. Ernest Frederick, a civil engineer working for the US government and stationed in Turkey at the time, was the first American to cross the bridge. American comedian and Ambassador for UNICEF Danny Kaye, dressed like a clown, followed him with a pack of Turkish children. As a huge crowd of people started to run after them, the bridge began to vibrate, and the crowd had to be held back to avoid any damage. The cost of the bridge amounted to USD 200 million.

Transportation
The highway bridge has a total width of eight lanes. Each direction has three lanes for vehicular traffic plus one emergency lane and one sidewalk. On weekday mornings, commuter traffic flows mostly westbound to the European part, so four of the six lanes run westbound and only two eastbound. Conversely, on weekday evenings, four lanes are dedicated to eastbound traffic and two lanes only to westbound. In the first four years, pedestrians could walk over the bridge, reaching it with elevators inside the towers on both sides.

No pedestrians or commercial vehicles like trucks are allowed to use the bridge today. Nowadays, around 180,000 vehicles pass daily in both directions, almost 85% being automobiles. On December 29, 1997, the one-billionth vehicle passed the bridge. Fully loaded, the bridge sags about 90 cm in the middle of the span.

Other uses
The Intercontinental Istanbul Eurasia Marathon, organized annually in October, starts from the Anatolian part of Istanbul, crosses the Bosphorus on the bridge and ends in the European part during which the bridge is closed to the vehicular traffic. Visitors to Istanbul in October can sign up for the 'fun run' at many points round the city and take the opportunity to cross the bridge by foot - many take picnics to enjoy the view. On a merrier point of view, it is a popular belief that a wish made while going under the bridge will come true.

Trivia
On May 15, 2005 at 7.00 local time, U.S. tennis star Venus Williams played a show game with Turkish standout İpek Şenoğlu on the bridge, the first tennis match ever to be played on two continents. The event was organized as a promotion ahead of the 2005 WTA’s Istanbul Cup and lasted five minutes only on the north side of the bridge. After the exhibition, they both threw a tennis ball into the Bosphorus.

On July 17, 2005 at 10:30 local time, British Formula One driver David Coulthard drove his Red Bull racing car on the bridge first from the European side to the Asian side, and then turning with a spectacular power slide at the toll plaza back to the European side for show. He parked his car in the garden of Dolmabahçe Palace where his ride had started.

During his ride to the Turkish Grand Prix at Istanbul Racing Circuit on August 21, 2005, David Coulthard was picked up by the automatic surveillance system and charged with a fine of 20 Euro when he passed through the toll booths without payment, as only the president, traffic police and emergency workers have the right to cross the bridge for nothing. His team accepted to pay for him. Since April 23, 2007, a fully computerized LED lighting system of changing colours illuminates the bridge at night.

On 15 July 2016, the bridge was blocked by a faction of the Turkish Armed Forces during a coup attempt.[19] The soldiers involved surrendered to police the next day. On 25 July 2016, prime minister Binali Yıldırım announced that the bridge would be renamed as the 15 Temmuz Şehitler Köprüsü (July 15 Martyrs Bridge).

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