July 26, 2022 was an historic day in the history of Croatia, as the Chinese-made Peljesac Bridge (official name Peljeski Most, the Croatian translation) finally joined Dubrovnik and the south to the rest of Croatia without the need to pass through the so-called Neum Corridor in Bosnia and Hercegovina. It was a day of huge celebration and national pride, and images of Croatia’s new showcase infrastructure project went all over the globe. On a personal level, it was a privilege to witness this significant part of Croatian history firsthand and to see how many proud Croats had made the journey to savour this historic moment, as Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic sat in the passenger seat as Mate Rimac drove him over the bridge in his Rimac Nevera, the first vehicle to pass over the bridge after its official opening.
I had been fortunate enough to grab a seat in a press car that crossed over the bridge several hours earlier – above, you can see that journey.
The new bridge was obviously going to take a lot of traffic away from the Neum Corridor, and so it proved as I reported from the BiH border the following day – not a single car approaching the Neum border, but a steady stream of vehicles over the bridge.
And how many cars have passed over the bridge since that historic day, and how has traffic to Neum been affected? I reached out to the fabulously efficient Croatian Roads spokesperson, Tamara Pajic, this morning, and the answer was soon forthcoming.
By 09:00 this morning, some 100 days since the opening of the bridge, some 940,406 vehicles had passed over the bridge, almost 10,000 a day.
By contrast, traffic through Neum was down 70% for the equivalent period in 2019, the last normal traffic year before the pandemic.
A very solid start.
While for many, the joy of being able to now drive from Split to Dubrovnik and back without leaving the country is cause for celebration, the bigger benefit – at least in my opinion – is in the improved accessibility of the Peljesac Peninsula itself, as well as the magical island of Korcula.
To give you an idea of how accessibility to Korcula has changed, check out Korcula to Split via Peljesac Bridge: A Heavenly, Speedy Road Trip.
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