83% Progress in Tehran-North Freeway

The construction of the first section of the Tehran-North freeway project connecting the capital city to the northern Mazandaran Province has made 83% progress, the minister of roads and urban development said. “At more than 130 sites, construction is making rapid progress,” Abbas Akhoundi wrote in his channel on the messaging app Telegram, after he visited the project on Thursday. According to Akhoundi, Section 1 includes a 6,500-km-long tunnel whose excavation was recently completed. He said the 32-km stretch will be completed by the end of President Hassan Rouhani’s term in August 2017. The $2.2 billion project consists of four sections spanning 121 kilometers. The 32-kilometer Section 1 will cut short the existing route by 60 kilometers. Sections 2 and 3 pass through mountainous terrain and will take longer to complete. The 20-kilometer-long Section 4 was inaugurated in March 2014.