World's longest bridge to begin construction in 2010

The Qatar-Bahrain Friendship Causeway, a 25-mile-long marine causeway connecting the west coast of Qatar to the east coast of Bahrain, is scheduled to begin construction in 2010.

Originally scheduled to begin in May 2008, the $3 billion Persian gulf project is expected to take just 4.5 years to complete.

Bahrain and Qatar have allocated a budget of $500 million to begin the project, which intends to cut travel time by car from Qatar to Bahrain from 4.5 hours to just 30 minutes.

According to estimates, the causeway is expected to support 10,000 to 12,000 vehicles each day.

Construction contacts were awarded to KBR, an engineering company based in Houston, Texas.

Check out Mena Infrastructure for a neat infographic illustrating just how big this bridge will be.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com