SOCHI, January 25 (Itar-Tass) — A new highway bridge has been opened in Sochi, on the border with Abkhazia, sources from the Russian Border Agency (Rosgranitsa) told Tass on Wednesday.
At the moment the bridge operates in a test mode. Its capacity is 1,500 vehicles a day, including 1,200 motor vehicles, 100 buses and 140 trucks, the sources said.
On Tuesday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met with his Abkhazian counterpart Alexander Ankvab on the new highway bridge, which connects Russia and Abkhazia. The presidents arrived on the bridge to attend its symbolic commissioning ceremony.
It was built within the framework of modernization of the international motor checkpoint Adler. The project also envisages the construction of a new pedestrian terminal. Pedestrians, buses, motor vehicles and trucks will be undergoing customs control procedures separately.
Vehicles will move on six lands in each direction. Three separate lanes are designed for trucks and one – for tourist buses. The checkpoint on the Russian-Abkhazian border, existing since 1992, has fully exhausted its possibilities. Its project capacity is up to 650 vehicles a day, but in fact up to four times more vehicles drive through it, and even more than 3,300 vehicles on peak days.
During the holiday season, up to 36,500 pedestrians go across the pedestrian checkpoint. In 2005 the Russian Federal Customs Service began to reconstruct a two-way motor checkpoint Adler as a result of which capacity of the checkpoint is to grow 12 times.
Sources from Rostranitsa say that the old highway bridge will be used as a reserve one after the new one is launched officially in February. The construction of checkpoint’s pedestrian section with the capacity of up to 30,000 people daily will also be finished this year.