KYIV. March 22 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The State Automobile Roads Agency of Ukraine, also known as Ukravtodor, and China road and bridge corporation (CRBC) on March 21 signed a memorandum of cooperation in the sphere of designing and financing construction of M-22/E-584 Poltava-Oleksandria road on the section bypassing Kremenchuk with a bridge across the Dnipro River.
The press service of Ukravtodor said that Ukravtodor Head Slawomir Nowak and CRBC Vice President Du Fei signed the memo.
“Today the only bridge across the Dnipro River has only two moving traffic lanes. The bridge was opened in 1949. Its pillars were built in 1872. Along with city traffic, two important national roads go across the bridge: H-08 Boryspil-Kremenchuk-Dnipro-Zaporizhia-Mariupol roads and M-22 Poltava-Oleksandria road, which is part of the European corridor E-584 Poltava-Chisinau-Slobozia (Romania) and part of Pan-European transport corridor,” the agency said.
Nowak said that Kremenchuk is an important industrial center of the country, which annually generates around 4% of revenue of Ukraine’s national budget, while traffic across the Dnipro River is not comfortable, as the only bridge is located in the center of the city.
“The construction of the bridge in suburbs would help to redirect the transit traffic outside the city, which would unload the streets, make trips safer and improve the environmental situation. The new bridge would ensure not only the high-quality connection across the Dnipro River, but would promote for the increase of investment attractiveness of the Dnirpo basin region and create new jobs,” Nowak said.
