#Turkish_President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lays the foundation for the first bridges of the "#Canal_Istanbul" project, to actually start implementing the project that was announced on April 7, 2011 during his tenure as prime minister. At the time, Erdogan described the Istanbul Canal project as "the project of the age", indicating that it had been a dream of him since he was mayor of Istanbul. The bridge is 860 meters long, 46 meters wide, and contains four lanes in both directions.