Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge

The bridge is part of the projected Northern Marmara Motorway (), which will bypass urban areas of northern Istanbul connecting Kınalı, Silivri in the west and Paşaköy, Hendek in the east. The bridge is in length with a main span of . The project had failed to meet projections, requiring Ankara to boost operators' revenue from treasury coffers, and since early 2018 the partners in the joint venture sought restructuring of $2.3 billion of debt from creditors. On July 30, 2018, China's ICBC was authorized as the lead regulator to refinance the $2.7 billion loan for the bridge. The bridge toll is set to be 100 between the motorway exits Odayeri and Riva. It is expected that at least 135,000 vehicles will use the bridge daily in each direction. == Construction ==

Plans for a third Bosphorus bridge were approved by the Ministry of Transportation in 2012. The construction of the project was awarded to the İçtaş-Astaldi consortium on 29 May 2012. The paperwork filed for a change of plan written by the State Highways Directorate Director-General Mehmet Cahit Turhan on 11 June 2013, reads "it is appropriate to cancel the current construction plan due to the necessity of making a revision, which resulted from changes of the route project". Both the ministry and the construction company have denied any change to the site location. On 5 April 2014, a fatal accident occurred during construction of the link road to the bridge on the Asian side of the Bosphorus near Çavuşbaşı, Beykoz. Three workers were killed and another was injured when he fell from collapsed scaffolding while concrete was being poured at a viaduct. == Name of the bridge ==

, Selim I (1470–1520) At the ground-breaking ceremony President Abdullah Gül announced that the bridge would be named the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, in honour of Ottoman Sultan Selim I (–1520), who expanded the Ottoman Empire into the Middle East and North Africa in 1514–1517 and obtained the title of Caliph of Islam for the Ottoman dynasty after his conquest of Egypt in 1517. He was nicknamed Yavuz, traditionally translated in English as "Grim", but closer to "Stern" or "Implacable" in Turkish. The choice of name led to protests by Turkey's Alevi community because of Sultan Selim I's alleged role in the Ottoman persecution of Alevis. After the Şahkulu Rebellion (1511) in Anatolia, and the Battle of Chaldiran (1514) in northwestern Iran, during which the Kızılbaş warriors of the Alevis in eastern Anatolia (who adhere to the Shia sect of Islam) sided with Shah Ismail I of Safavid Persia, the victorious Selim I ordered the massacre of the Kızılbaş whom he considered traitors and heretics (see also Ottoman–Safavid relations and Ottoman–Persian Wars). == Controversy surrounding the bridge ==

Land prices in the less urbanized areas on both sides of the Bosphorus immediately soared in expectation of an urbanization boom thanks to the new cross-water connection, according to Ekumenopolis, a documentary film of 2010 about the area. == Opening ceremony ==

The opening ceremony on 26 August 2016 was attended by Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, Bosniak president of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bakir Izetbegović, Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov, the King of Bahrain Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and President of the self-declared state of Northern Cyprus Mustafa Akıncı. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım delivered speeches. == Galleries ==

File:Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge IMG 3065.jpg|Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, view from Poyrazköy road File:Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge MG 3032.jpg|Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, Poyrazköy leg File:Yavuz_Sultan_Selim_Bridge_IMG_3028.jpg File:Yavuz-Sultan-Selim-Brücke.jpg File:Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge IMG 3080.jpg|Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, view from Poyrazköy File:Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge IMG 3074.jpg|Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, view from Poyrazköy Stages of construction File:Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge p3 Jan 2014.JPG|Poyrazköy pylons (view from Garipçe, Sarıyer in January 2014) File:Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge p7 Jan 2014.JPG|Poyrazköy pylons (view from Garipçe in January 2014) File:2 Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge July 2015.jpg|View from Anadolu Kavağı, July 2015 File:Poyrazköy'den 3. köprü.jpg|View from Poyrazköy, July 2015 File:Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge Istanbul.jpg|Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, 24 August 2016 == See also == • Istanbul Canal • Istanbul Airport • Bosphorus Bridge • Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge • Osman Gazi Bridge • Çanakkale 1915 Bridge • Eurasia Tunnel, undersea tunnel, crossing the Bosphorus for vehicular traffic, opened in December 2016. • Marmaray, undersea rail tunnel connecting the Asian and European sides of Istanbul. • Great Istanbul Tunnel, a proposed three-level road-rail undersea tunnel. • Public transport in Istanbul • Rail transport in Turkey • Turkish Straits == References ==