Adriatic Highway

The Adriatic Highway ( hr, Jadranska magistrala) is a road that stretches along the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea and is part of the European route E65. The road passes through Croatia, with smaller stretches through Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro 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 through Zadar and a dual-carriageway section from Plano (Trogir) to the southeast suburbs of Split. It was planned in the 1930s and built in the 50s and 60s. The dual carriageway is planned to be extended further southeast to Omiš. Completion of the Adriatic Ionian motorway is proposed in order to replace the Adriatic highway as a high-performance road transport route along the Adriatic coast.

Sections

Adriatic Highway runs along the east coast of the Adriatic Sea and passes through three countries: Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. Most of the highway is located in Croatia.

Croatian section

Croatian section of the highway is officially named D8 state road ( hr, Državna cesta D8), and it runs from Slovenian border crossing via Rijeka via Senj, Zadar, Šibenik, Split, Opuzen and Dubrovnik to the border with Montenegro at Karasovići. Most of the D8 is still a two-lane road, excepting rare four-lane stretches. Total length of the road through Croatia is . Like all other state roads in Croatia, it is maintained by Hrvatske 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 A7 (Rupa border crossing-Sveti Kuzam), A6 (Rijeka-Bosiljevo) and A1 (Bosiljevo-Zadar-Split-Ploče). Since Adriatic Highway closely follows the well-indented Croatian coastline, travel is considerably longer and less safe compared to the motorways because of numerous blind curves and at-grade intersections. 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 touristic destinations.

The D8 section from Rijeka to Senj experiences heavy traffic in particular because many motorists are unwilling to take the longer route along A6 and A1, even though the motorway route normally requires shorter travel time. This problem used to be further exacerbated before 2009 when A6 still had slow semi-highway parts on the Rijeka-Bosiljevo route. This section will remain congested at peak intervals until eventual completion of A7 motorway between Rupa and Žuta Lokva.

Since the parallel A1 motorway terminates at the Ploče interchange, approximately northwest of Ploče, tourists heading south generally switch to the Adriatic Highway. Further after Ploče drivers also encounter a small strip of Bosnia and Herzegovina territory around town of (Neum) between Klek and Zaton Doli