TEHRAN – Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, on Thursday, inaugurated the second section of the Tehran-Shomal Freeway in a ceremony attended by the Minister of Transport and Urban Development Mehrdad Bazrpash.

Over 170 trillion rials (about $337.8 million) has been invested to complete this 15.5-kilometer freeway section, IRNA reported.The construction project includes the creation of nine bridges and 17 tunnels with a total length of 19.7 kilometers.Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Raisi said the project could save people's time and cost and it plays a significant role in reducing road accidents.As reported, with the project going operational, 12.5 million liters of gas are going to be saved annually and air pollutants will be reduced by 511 tons per year.The first section of the long-awaited Tehran-Shomal freeway, which shortens the route between the Iranian capital and Mazandaran province in the north, was officially inaugurated in late February 2020.The first section of the freeway which was nearly 32 kilometers connected the Azadegan freeway in the capital to Shahrestanak County in Alborz province.Back in June, Iranian Deputy Transport and Urban Development Minister Kheirollah Khademi said 293 kilometers of freeways are going to be added to the country’s road network by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (late March 2024).According to Khademi, who is the managing director of Iran's Construction and Development of Transportation Infrastructures Company (CDTIC), the figure is three times the average annual freeway construction in the country.“Completing the first phase of section 2 of the Tehran-Shomal freeway, inaugurating the Shiraz-Isfahan freeway which is the longest freeway in the country, and completing the Manjil-Roudbar freeway as the bottleneck of the Qazvin-Rasht freeway, were some of the projects on the ministry’s agenda for the current year,” Khademi said.EF/MA