The construction of a new border crossing on the Croatian bank of the Sava along with a new bridge near the beginning of Gradiška on Wednesday, so a new road connection between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina should be operational from April 2025, confirmed the Croatian Ministry of Finance, which is responsible for the project. The new bridge near Gradiška, a continuation of the highway in BiH with branches to Banja Luka, Doboj and Sarajevo, which was jointly financed by Croatia and BiH with the support of the European Union, was completed in 2022, but it is not yet operational because it leads nowhere. Namely, on the Croatian side, the border crossing has not been built, nor has the connecting road from the bridge to the Zagreb-Lipovac highway been completed.
For this reason, traffic across the most frequent road border crossing between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina near Gradiška still takes place over the old bridge, which is reached through the center of the city, with regular traffic jams and hours-long waits to cross the border.
Now a solution to that problem is in sight, Banjola’s “Nezavisne novine” reports on Tuesday.
“A contract has been concluded with the selected contractor for the construction of facilities at the future GP Gradiška, which will be put into operation on April 10, 2024. According to the concluded contract, the deadline for the completion of the works, and thus the the GP function is 12 months from the day of the introduction of the contract into the business”, it is stated in the statement of the Croatian Ministry of Finance, carried by the newspaper.
The border crossing on the Bosnia and Herzegovina side has been completed together with the bridge and has long been ready for use.
In order for the new bridge near Gradiška to be fully functional, the existing road connecting to the Zagreb-Lipovac highway still needs to be widened on the Croatian side. The project is divided into two sections, and final works are underway on the first section, which, as announced by Croatian Highways (HAC), should be completed by autumn.
The company “Integral Engineering”, which is building that section, was also chosen to carry out the continuation of the works worth around 13.6 million euros without VAT.