First 2.5 km two-lane section of Rikoti Pass to open this fall
A total of 51.6 km of roads are planned to be built on Rikoti Pass, which will include 96 bridges and 53 tunnels. Photo: Ministry of Infrastructure.
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The first 2.5 km two-lane section of the Rikoti Highway, a mountain pass which divides Georgia into its eastern and western parts, will open this fall, announces Georgian Infrastructure Minister Irakli Karseladze.
He said that 70-80% of the Rikoti Pass project is in the active construction phase.
The Rikoti section is the most difficult and important section in the construction of the East-West highway. This year one new section of the Rikoti Pass road will be added to the 70 km section of the East-West highway opened last year, which saved one hour from Tbilisi to Batumi", Karseladze said.
A total of 51.6 km of roads are planned to be built on Rikoti Pass, which will include 96 bridges and 53 tunnels. The construction of the Rikoti Pass section is divided into four phases.
So far six tunnels have already been carved.
Ongoing work on a highway of "crucial" importance, set to connect Georgia's capital Tbilisi with the Black Sea city of Batumi, will be completed soon, prime minister Giorgi Gakharia told reporters on Saturday.
Georgia is currently building 140 kilometers of new large highways, of which a total of 70 km roads will be opened by the end of 2020, says Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia.
The modernisation of Rikoti Pass continues to more efficiently connect East and West Georgia. As part of the project two new tunnels have been carved on the Khevi-Ubisa section, near the villages of Ubisa and Gantiadi.
The Roads Department of Georgia has signed an agreement for the reconstruction of the fourth section of the Rikoti Pass – a mountain pass which divides Georgia into its eastern and western parts – with Guizhou Highway Engineering Group and China National Technical Import and Export Corporation, announced the department earlier today.
The European Investment Bank has provided an additional €106.7 million to upgrade two sections of Georgia's East-West (E60) highway, the country’s main road artery, and extend the motorway to the borders with Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili stated that the travel time from Tbilisi to Batumi will be just three hours by 2024 after the construction of 96 bridges and 53 tunnels will be completed on the Rikoti Pass. Currently the trip takes between five-six hours. Garibashvili noted that projects of such scale and complexity have not been implemented in the country.
Construction works on 88 bridges and 51 tunnels are “actively underway” at the Rikoti Pass, a mountain section dividing Georgia into its eastern and western parts, the Roads Department announced on Tuesday.
Sections of the new Rikoti Pass road will be opened this year, with the construction of the new Rikoti Highway set to be completed in 2023, Infrastructure Minister Irakli Karseladze said on Wednesday.