President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated Section-1 of Tehran-North Freeway project, which connects the capital city Tehran to the city of Chalous in Mazandaran Province, on Tuesday.
Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami and the head of Mostazafan Foundation, Parviz Fattah, were also present at the inaugural event, the ministry’s news portal reported.
The first section has come on stream around 23 years after the freeway’s construction was launched in the fiscal 1996-97.
The freeway project has been referred to as one of the most protracted development projects in Iran, as numerous deadlines for completing its different sections had been missed.
The 32-kilometer Section-1 is said to reduce Tehran-Chalous travelling distance for motorists by 60 kilometers and save up to 330,000 rials ($2.14) worth of gasoline on each one-way trip.
According to the project manager, Bayat Sarmadi, there are 40 tunnels (31,850 meters long), and 25 bridges (3,137 meters long) along Section-1.
“Around 8.2 million cubic meters of excavation and 3.9 million cubic meters of embankment have been carried out in this project, which has been paved using concrete,” he told the news portal of the Roads Ministry.
The freeway toll for cars has been set at 200,000 rials ($1.29) and 300,000 rials ($1.94) on ordinary days and peak traffic days respectively. Pickup trucks, minibuses and buses have to pay 350,000 rials ($2.27), 400,000 rials ($2.59) and 450,000 rials ($2.92) respectively.
“Today, the freeway’s 32-kilometer-long Section-1 is worth around $1 billion,” Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, the head of Plan and Budget Organization of Iran, has been quoted as saying by Fars News Agency.
The Tehran-North Freeway mega project consists of four phases spanning 121 km.
Sections 2 and 3 pass through mountainous terrain, are not easily accessible and will take much longer to complete.
The final stretch of the freeway project, Section-4, which is 20 kilometers long, was inaugurated in March 2014.
Fattah said by the end of the fiscal 2021-22, 50% of Section-2 will also come on stream, adding that the completion of this part requires about 20 trillion rials ($153 million).
Mostazafan Foundation, the largest charity and the second-largest socioeconomic conglomerate, is overseeing the project.
