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TheAdriatic Highway (Serbo-Croatian:Jadranska magistrala) is a road that stretches along the eastern coast of theAdriatic Sea and is part of theEuropean route E65. The road passes throughCroatia, with smaller stretches throughBosnia and Herzegovina andMontenegro and ends at the Montenegro-Albania border. It is an undivided two-lane road for almost its entire length, with the exception of a short stretch throughZadar and a 24 kilometres (15 mi) dual-carriageway section from Plano (Trogir) to the southeast suburbs ofSplit. It was planned in the 1930s and built in the 50s and 60s. The dual carriageway is planned to be extended further southeast toOmiš. Completion of theAdriatic Ionian motorway is proposed in order to replace Adriatic Highway as a high-performance road transport route along the Adriatic coast.[1]
The Adriatic Highway runs along the east coast of the Adriatic Sea, passing through three countries:Croatia,Bosnia and Herzegovina andMontenegro. Most of the highway is located in Croatia.
The Croatian section of the Adriatic Highway is officially named theD8 state road (Croatian:Državna cesta D8),[2] which runs from theSlovenian border crossing atPasjak viaRijeka,Senj,Zadar,Šibenik,Split,Opuzen andDubrovnik to the border with Montenegro atKarasovići.[3][4] Most of the D8 is still a two-lane road, with four-lane stretches being relatively rare. The total length of the road through Croatia is 643.1 kilometres (399.6 mi). Like all otherstate roads in Croatia, it is maintained by the state-ownedHrvatske ceste.
Until recent times the highway has been the primary route connecting Adriatic coastal parts of Croatia. Since the 2000s multilane motorways have taken over most of its traffic, and yet more motorways are still being built along the coast. The motorways parallel to the road are theA7 (Rupa border crossing-Sveti Kuzam),A6 (Rijeka-Bosiljevo) andA1 (Bosiljevo-Zadar-Split-Ploče).[3] Since the Adriatic Highway closely follows the well-indented Croatian coastline, travel is considerably slower and less safe when compared to the motorways because of numerous blind curves andat-grade intersections. However, the D8 state road is still popular as an alternative to the tolled highways, so the road carries fairly constant traffic during most of the year. The traffic intensifies in the summer, because of substantial traffic to tourist destinations.
The D8 section from Rijeka to Senj experiences particularly heavy traffic in particular because many motorists are unwilling to take the longer route via the A6 and A1, even though the motorway route normally requires shorter travel time. Before 2009, this problem would be further exacerbated as the A6 still had some slowsemi-highway sections between Rijeka andBosiljevo. This section will likely remain congested at peak times until the completion of theA7 motorway betweenKraljevica andŽuta Lokva.
Since the parallelA1 motorway terminates at the Ploče interchange,[5] approximately 20 km (10 mi) northwest of Ploče, tourists heading south generally switch to the Adriatic Highway. Further 30 km (20 mi) after Ploče drivers also encounter a small strip of Bosnia and Herzegovina territory around town of (Neum) betweenKlek andZaton Doli.[4] After that section, the highway continues toDubrovnik close to the coastline.
Upon the completion of A7 and A1 the part of Adriatic Highway spanning from Ploče to Dubrovnik are planned to be upgraded to an expressway bypassing Neum in Bosnia and Herzegovina entirely via a series of tunnels and bridges,Pelješac Bridge being the most notable among them. The possibility of other upgrades remains open.
East of Dubrovnik the road passes byDubrovnik Airport and reaches the border with Montenegro at Karasovići (Debeli Brijeg on the Montenegrin side).[4]
The highway passes through a small strip ofBosnia and Herzegovina territory atNeum and is classified as M-2 road (Bosnian:Magistralna cesta M-2). The border crossings are at Neum 1 (withKlek on the Croatian side) to the west of Neum, and Neum 2 (withZaton Doli on the Croatian side) to the east.
Within Montenegro, the road is official classified as theM-1 highway (Montenegrin:Magistralni put M-1), and runs fromDebeli Brijeg border crossing with Croatia throughHerceg Novi,Kotor,Budva,Petrovac,Sutomore,Bar andUlcinj, before ending at theSukobin border crossing withAlbania, having two lanes for its entire length.
The road itself runs around theBay of Kotor throughKotor, but through traffic uses the ferry connection across theVerige Strait between Herceg Novi andTivat via theM-11 road. TheVerige bridge, to span the eponymous strait, is planned to allow traffic to bypass most of the bay.
The Montenegrin section, albeit as narrow as the Croatian section, still remains the only feasible route along the Adriatic coast. As yet, there are no plans for any motorways along the coast of Montenegro to replace it.
There are three major roads from the Adriatic Highway to inland Montenegro – at Budva, viaM-10 toCetinje, at Petrovac, viaM-2 toVirpazar andPodgorica, and atSutomore, via theSozina Tunnel (M-1.1), also to Virpazar and Podgorica.
The road is the part ofE65 andE80European routes starting fromDebeli Brijeg border crossing, and theEuropean routeE851 starting fromPetrovac. At Sutomore, the E65 and E80 routes go to the north and leave the road via the Sozina Tunnel, while the E851 continues on the M-1 toSukobin border crossing.