Highway through Belgrade and Terazije Tunnel opened 49 years ago today

Exactly 49 years ago, on December 4, 1970, one of the more important events in the history of modern Belgrade took place. Two large traffic routes opened in the city: the highway through Belgrade with the Gazela Bridge and Mostarska Petlja (Mostar Interchange) and the Terazije Tunnel.

This was a huge event in the city and the central figures at the ceremony were Josip Broz Tito, the president of Yugoslavia, Branko Pesic, the mayor of Belgrade, and professor Milan Djuric, the author of the engineering design. They had previously attended the stress test at the Gazela Bridge. The Yugoslav People's Army was used in this experiment, with a large number of trucks filled with gravel and army transport vehicles for ballistic missiles crossing the bridge simultaneously back and forth. The bridge was initially designed for 40,000 cars a day, and the latest data show that as many as 165,000 vehicles cross it daily.

Grad Beograd

Gazela bridge

highway through Belgrade

Mostarska petlja

Mostar Interchange

Terazije Tunnel

Josip Broz Tito

Branko Pešić

Milan Đurić