Peljesac Bridge to reduce hassles for long-suffering travelers

The 2.4-km-long, 23.6-meter-wide, four-lane bridge was built by a consortium headed by the China Road and Bridge Corporation, or CRBC. Standing 55 meters above sea level with pylons rising to a height of as much as 124 meters, the bridge connects Komarna on the mainland with the town of Brijesta on the Peljesac Peninsula.

The CRBC began work on the project on July 30, 2018, just three months after it led a Chinese consortium to win public tendering by Hrvatske Ceste, a state-owned company in Croatia responsible for public roads. The project was funded by 357 million euros ($390 million) from the European Commission's Cohesion Policy funds. The money accounted for 85 percent of the total cost, with the rest covered by Croatia.

CRBC was the first Chinese company to undertake a project funded by the European Union.

During construction, the CRBC worked with 18 design consulting companies, 45 construction companies in the European Union and 112 global equipment and materials suppliers, environmental protection and other professional companies in Croatia, Poland, Romania and elsewhere.

It was a huge undertaking, especially after the pandemic broke out in 2020, when 800 Chinese workers were engaged in construction. Ensuring the progress and quality of the project while protecting workers from the coronavirus was a huge challenge.

Liu Jiaxi, a CRBC field engineer on the project, said earlier that successfully meeting the standards of China, Croatia and the EU could be "attributed to everyone's dedication and their pursuit for excellence in details".

Croatia started building the Peljesac Bridge in 2007 but work was halted in 2010 because of financial difficulties.

"I feel pride that we belong to the generation that has accomplished this remarkable feat, connecting Croatia's south, the southern parts of Dubrovnik-Neretva County, with the rest of the country," Croatia's Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said during an inauguration gala for the bridge featuring fireworks and acrobatic aerial displays and music and dance.

Plenkovic said the bridge is "not a luxury but a necessity" and will contribute to the country's economic development, transport connectivity, tourism revenues as well as better living standards for all people in the south of Dubrovnik-Neretva County.

Croatia's President Zoran Milanovic also attended the opening ceremony. "The Peljesac Bridge will forever remain a monumental reminder of the boldness of one generation of Croatian people," he said.

Kristjan Stanicic, managing director of the Croatian National Tourist Board, described the bridge as a new attraction that would further stimulate tourist demand in the south.

A promotional video by the Dubrovnik and Neretva County Tourist Board calls the bridge "a life-changing connection".

Peljesac Bridge is a state-of-the-art construction that unifies Croatian territory, improves the region's level of competitiveness, increases the level of services and safety of traffic by allowing easier accessibility, and reduces the travel time to and from the far south, with no border crossings, the video said.

Early this month, the International Bridge Conference in Pennsylvania awarded the Gustav Lindenthal Medal in respect of the Peljesac Bridge for its outstanding achievement in engineering and for "demonstrating technical and material innovation, aesthetic merit, harmony with the environment and successful community participation".

An award ceremony will be held at the IBC annual conference in National Harbor, Maryland, on June 12.

Lu Shengwei, assistant general manager of CRBC Croatia, in Zagreb, said his team is still supervising operations of the bridge, remaining in close contact with the owner, providing training to the owner's repair and maintenance team and ensuring subcontractors fulfill their obligations during the warranty period.