The Bosphorus Bridge ( tr, Boğaziçi Köprüsü), known officially as the 15 July Martyrs Bridge ( tr, 15 Temmuz Şehitler Köprüsü) and unofficially as the First Bridge ( tr, Birinci Köprü), is one of the three suspension bridges spanning the Bosphorus strait (Turkish: ''Boğaziçi'') in

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

, thus connecting

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

(alongside

Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge ("Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror Bridge"), also known as the Second Bosphorus Bridge (in Turkish: ''Fatih Sultan Mehmet Köprüsü'', ''F.S.M. Köprüsü'' or ''2. Köprü''), is a bridge in Istanbul, Turkey spannin ...

and

Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge The Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge ( tr, Yavuz Sultan Selim Köprüsü) is a bridge for rail and motor vehicle transit over the Bosphorus strait, to the north of two existing suspension bridges in Istanbul, Turkey. It was initially named the Third Bos ...

). The bridge extends between

Ortaköy Ortaköy ( ''Middle Village)'' is a neighbourhood within the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul, Turkey, on the European shore of the Bosphorus. it was originally a small fishing village, known in Greek as Agios Fokas (Άγιος Φωκάς) in t ...

(in Europe) and

Beylerbeyi Beylerbeyi is a neighborhood in the Üsküdar municipality of Istanbul, Turkey. It is located on the Asian shore of the Bosporus, to the north of the Bosphorus Bridge. It is bordered on the northeast by the neighborhood of Çengelköy, on the ea ...

(in Asia). It is a gravity-anchored suspension bridge with steel towers and inclined hangers. The

aerodynamic Aerodynamics, from grc, ἀήρ ''aero'' (air) + grc, δυναμική (dynamics), is the study of the motion of air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dyn ...

deck hangs on steel cables. It is General Directorate of Highways: Project information about the 15 July Martyrs Bridge
(Turkish) long with a deck width of . The distance between the towers (main span) is and the total height of the towers is . The clearance of the bridge from sea level is . Upon its completion in 1973, the Bosphorus Bridge had the fourth-longest suspension bridge span in the world, and the longest outside the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

(only the

Verrazano-Narrows Bridge The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge ( ) is a suspension bridge connecting the New York City boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn. It spans the Narrows, a body of water linking the relatively enclosed New York Harbor with Lower New York Bay and t ...

, Golden Gate Bridge and

Mackinac Bridge The Mackinac Bridge ( ) is a suspension bridge spanning the Straits of Mackinac, connecting the Upper and Lower peninsulas of the U.S. state of Michigan. Opened in 1957, the bridge (familiarly known as "Big Mac" and "Mighty Mac") is the worl ...

had a longer span in 1973). The Bosphorus Bridge remained the longest suspension bridge in Europe until the completion of the Humber Bridge in 1981, and the longest suspension bridge in Asia until the completion of the

(Second Bosphorus Bridge) in 1988 (which was surpassed by the

Minami Bisan-Seto Bridge The is a series of double deck bridges connecting Okayama and Kagawa prefectures in Japan across a series of five small islands in the Seto Inland Sea. Built over the period 1978–88, it is one of the three routes of the Honshū–Shikoku B ...

in 1989). Currently, the Bosphorus Bridge has the 40th-longest suspension bridge span in the world. After a group of soldiers took control and partially closed off the bridge during the military coup d'état attempt on 15 July 2016, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım proclaimed on 25 July 2016 the decision of the Cabinet of Turkey that the bridge will be formally renamed as the ''15 Temmuz Şehitler Köprüsü'' (''July 15th Martyrs Bridge'') in memory of those killed while resisting the attempted coup. The Bosphorus Bridge is famous for its important transport routes, connecting parts of Europe to Turkey.

Precedents and proposals

The idea of a bridge crossing the Bosphorus dates back to antiquity. The

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

writer

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...

says in his Histories that, on the orders of Emperor Darius the Great of the Achaemenid Empire (522 BC–485 BC), Mandrocles of

Samos Samos (, also ; el, Σάμος ) is a Greece, Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese, and off the coast of western Turkey, from which it is separated by the -wide Mycale Strait. It is also a se ...

once engineered a

pontoon bridge A pontoon bridge (or ponton bridge), also known as a floating bridge, uses floats or shallow-draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle travel. The buoyancy of the supports limits the maximum load that they can carry. ...

across the Bosphorus, linking Asia to Europe; this bridge enabled Darius to pursue the fleeing

Scythians The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern * : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Centra ...

as well as position his army in the

Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...

to overwhelm

Macedon Macedonia (; grc-gre, Μακεδονία), also called Macedon (), was an Classical antiquity, ancient monarchy, kingdom on the periphery of Archaic Greece, Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. Th ...

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...

proposed a suspension bridge to Sultan Bayezid II in 1502 or 1503. The first modern project for a permanent bridge across the Bosphorus was proposed to Sultan Abdul Hamid II of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

by the Bosphorus Railroad Company in 1900, which included a rail link between the continents.

Construction

The decision to build a bridge across the Bosphorus was taken in 1957 by Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. For the structural engineering work, a contract was signed with the British firm

Freeman Fox & Partners Hyder Consulting was a multi-national advisory and design consultancy with particular specialisation in the transport, property, utilities and environmental sectors. The firm employed approximately 4,200 people across the UK, Europe, Germany, Midd ...

in 1968. The bridge was designed by the British civil engineers Gilbert Roberts, William Brown and Michael Parsons, who also designed the Humber Bridge,

Severn Bridge The Severn Bridge ( cy, Pont Hafren) is a motorway suspension bridge that spans the River Severn between South Gloucestershire in England and Monmouthshire in South East Wales. It is the original Severn road crossing between England and Wale ...

, and

Forth Road Bridge The Forth Road Bridge is a suspension bridge in east central Scotland. The bridge opened in 1964 and at the time was the longest suspension bridge in the world outside the United States. The bridge spans the Firth of Forth, connecting Edinbur ...

. Construction started in February 1970 and ceremonies were attended by President

Cevdet Sunay Cevdet Sunay (; 10 February 1899 – 22 May 1982) was a Turkish politician and army officer, who served as the fifth President of Turkey from 1966 to 1973. Early life and career Sunay was born in 1899 in Trabzon, in the Ottoman Empire. ...

and Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel. The bridge was built by the Turkish firm Enka Construction & Industry Co. along with the co-contractors

Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company was a UK bridge works and structural steel contractor based in Darlington. It built landmarks including the Victoria Falls Bridge in Zimbabwe; the Tees Transporter Bridge; the Forth Road and Humber suspe ...

(England) and

Hochtief AG Hochtief AG is a German construction company based in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.Republic of Turkey, and opened by President

Fahri Korutürk Fahri Sabit Korutürk (3 August 1903 – 12 October 1987) was a Turkish admiral, diplomat and politician who was the 6th president of Turkey from 1973 to 1980. Before his presidency, he served as the 3rd commander of the Turkish Naval Forces fr ...

and Prime Minister

Naim Talu Mehmet Naim Talu (22 July 1919 – 15 May 1998) was a Turkish economist, banker, politician and former Prime Minister of Turkey. Biography Naim Talu was born in Istanbul in 1919. He was educated at Kabataş Erkek Lisesi. After graduating ...

. The cost of the bridge was US$200 million ($ in dollars). Upon the bridge's opening, much was made of its being the first bridge between Europe and Asia since the

of Xerxes in 480 BC. That bridge, however, spanned the Hellespont (

Dardanelles The Dardanelles (; tr, Çanakkale Boğazı, lit=Strait of Çanakkale, el, Δαρδανέλλια, translit=Dardanéllia), also known as the Strait of Gallipoli from the Gallipoli peninsula or from Classical Antiquity as the Hellespont (; ...

), some distance away from the Bosphorus, and was the second bridge after the above-mentioned bridge built by Emperor Darius I The Great across the Bosphorus in 513 BC.

Operation and tolls

Bosphorus_Bridge,_İstanbul_(13080304154)

The bridge highway is eight lanes wide. Three standard lanes, one emergency lane and one pedestrian lane serve each direction. On weekday mornings, most commuter traffic flows westbound to Europe, so four of the six lanes run westbound and only two eastbound. Conversely, on weekday evenings, four lanes are dedicated to eastbound traffic and two lanes, to westbound traffic. For the first three years, pedestrians could walk over the bridge, reaching it with

elevator An elevator or lift is a cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or decks of a building, vessel, or other structure. They a ...

s inside the towers on both sides. No pedestrians or commercial vehicles, such as

truck A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame constructi ...

s, are allowed to use the bridge today. Today, around 180,000 vehicles pass daily in both directions, with almost 85% being cars. On 29 December 1997, the one-billionth

vehicle A vehicle (from la, vehiculum) is a machine that transports people or cargo. Vehicles include wagons, bicycles, motor vehicles (motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, mobility scooters for disabled people), railed vehicles (trains, trams), ...

passed the bridge. Fully loaded, the bridge sags about in the middle of the span. It is a

toll bridge A toll bridge is a bridge where a monetary charge (or '' toll'') is required to pass over. Generally the private or public owner, builder and maintainer of the bridge uses the toll to recoup their investment, in much the same way as a toll road ...

, and a toll plaza with 13 toll booths is situated near the bridge on the Asian side. A toll is charged for passing from Europe to Asia, but not for passing in the reverse direction. Since 1999, some of the toll booths (#9 - #13), located to the far left as motorists approach them, are unmanned and equipped only with a remote payment system (Turkish: OGS) in order to not delay traffic. In addition to OGS, another toll pay system with special contactless smart cards (Turkish: KGS) was installed at specific toll booths in 2005. Bosphorus Bridge - Istanbul

Since 3 April 2006, toll booths accept no cash but only OGS or KGS. An OGS device or KGS card can be obtained at various stations before reaching the toll plazas of highways and bridges. In 2006, the toll was 3.00 TL or about $2.00. Since April 2007, a computerised LED lighting system of changing colours and patterns, developed by

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...

, illuminates the bridge at night. In 2012, KGS was replaced with the new HGS system, which uses radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. In 2017, the toll increased by nearly 50% from 4.75 to 7

TRY Try or TRY may refer to: Music Albums * ''Try!'', an album by the John Mayer Trio * ''Try'' (Bebo Norman album) (2014) Songs * "Try" (Blue Rodeo song) (1987) * "Try" (Colbie Caillat song) (2014) * "Try" (Nelly Furtado song) (2004) * " Try (Ju ...

. (On March 10, 2022, 7 Turkish TRY is worth $0.68US. Data from currencymatrix.com ) After 21 months, in late 2019, the toll went up another 20% to 10.50 TRY. The TRY value has dropped considerably in the first quarter of 2022. On March 10, 2022, 10.50 TRY was equivalent to $0.74US. Tolls need to be increased almost every year to keep up with high producers’ price inflation.

History

Every October, the annual

Intercontinental Istanbul Eurasia Marathon The Istanbul Marathon ( tr, İstanbul Maratonu, also known as N Kolay Istanbul Marathon for sponsorship reasons) is an international athletics event hosted in Istanbul, Turkey, in November, first held in 1979. It is the only marathon in the w ...

crosses the bridge on its way from Asia to Europe. During the marathon, the bridge is closed to vehicular traffic. In October, visitors participate in the 'fun run' and cross the bridge on foot. Many take picnics to enjoy the view. The bridge was depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 1000 lira banknotes of 1978–1986. On 15 May 2005 at 07:00 local time, U.S. tennis star

Venus Williams Venus Ebony Starr Williams (born June 17, 1980) is an American professional tennis player. A former world No. 1 in both singles and doubles, Williams has won seven Grand Slam singles titles, five at Wimbledon and two at the US Open. She is ...

played a show game with Turkish player

İpek Şenoğlu İpek Şenoğlu (born 8 June 1979), nicknamed İpeko, is a former Turkish tennis player. She first made history in June 2004, when she was accepted into the women's doubles qualifying for Wimbledon. Though Şenoğlu did not advance into the ma ...

on the bridge, the first tennis match played on two continents. The event promoted the upcoming 2005 WTA

İstanbul Cup The İstanbul Cup is a WTA tennis tournament held in Istanbul, Turkey, organised for professional female tennis players. It is classified as an International-level tournament on the WTA Tour. Held annually since May 2005, it was played on outdoo ...

and lasted five minutes. After the exhibition, they both threw a tennis ball into the Bosphorus. On 17 July 2005 at 10:30 local time, British

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

driver

David Coulthard David Marshall Coulthard (; born 27 March 1971) is a British former racing driver from Scotland, later turned presenter, commentator and journalist. Nicknamed 'DC', he competed in 15 seasons of Formula One between and , taking 13 Grand Prix vi ...

drove his Red Bull racing car across the bridge from the European side to the Asian side, then, after turning with a powerslide at the toll plaza, back to the European side for show. He parked his car in the garden of

Dolmabahçe Palace Dolmabahçe Palace ( tr, Dolmabahçe Sarayı, ) located in the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul, Turkey, on the European coast of the Bosporus strait, served as the main administrative center of the Ottoman Empire from 1856 to 1887 and from 1909 t ...

where his ride had started. While crossing the bridge with his Formula 1 car, Coulthard was picked up by the automatic surveillance system and charged with a fine of 20

Euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

s because he passed through the toll booths without payment. His team agreed to pay for him. On 5 November 2013, World No. 1 golfer

Tiger Woods Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer. He is tied for first in PGA Tour wins, ranks second in men's major championships, and holds numerous golf records. * * * Woods is widely regarded as ...

, visiting for the 2013 Turkish Airlines Open golf tournament held between 7 and 10 November, was brought to the bridge by helicopter and made a couple of show shots on the bridge, hitting balls from the Asian side to the European side on one side of the bridge, which was closed to traffic for about one hour. On 15 July 2016, the bridge was blocked by a faction of the

Turkish Armed Forces The Turkish Armed Forces (TAF; tr, Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri, TSK) are the military forces of the Republic of Turkey. Turkish Armed Forces consist of the General Staff, the Land Forces, the Naval Forces and the Air Forces. The current Chi ...

during a coup attempt. They also arrested civilians and police officers. Some tanks ran over vehicles. The soldiers involved surrendered to police and to civilians the next day. On 25 July 2016, prime minister Binali Yıldırım announced that the bridge would be renamed as the ''15 Temmuz Şehitler Köprüsü'' ( July 15 Martyrs Bridge).

Notes and references

External links

WowTurkey: Bosphorus Bridge Photos (Daytime)

WowTurkey: Bosphorus Bridge Photos (Night)

Live traffic camera pictures
*
Satellite image from Google

Bosphorus Bridge Panoramics In Istanbul , Turkey

3D-model ″First Bosphorus Bridge″ for Google Earth
{{Authority control Beşiktaş Bosphorus crossings Bridges completed in 1973 Bridges in Istanbul Road bridges in Turkey Suspension bridges in Turkey Toll bridges in Turkey Üsküdar 1973 establishments in Turkey