Motorists in Istanbul, accustomed to heavy traffic on the first workday of the week, breathed a sigh of relief yesterday as the congestion was almost non-existent in the early hours of the day thanks to Istanbul's new third Bosporus Bridge.The Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, inaugurated on Friday, became the third crossing over the Bosporus connecting the city's European and Asian sides. The ambitious project, touted as the world's widest bridge, aims to ease the traffic burden on the country's most populated city where more than 14 million people live.The bridge accompanies the July 15 Martyrs Bridge - formerly known as the Bosporus Bridge - and the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, aiming to relieve the traffic on them.None of the three bridges endured traffic jams yesterday, something that has become prevalent during every rush hour previously, especially on Mondays.Although the new bridge is free until Aug. 31, it was mostly used by trucks, buses and other heavy vehicles yesterday. Authorities plan to divert trucks and other heavy vehicles to the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, as truck traffic on the two other bridges is viewed as a major cause of the traffic congestion in the city.The new bridge, which was completed within a record-breaking 27 months, nine months ahead of schedule, stretches 1,480 meters over the Bosporus, has eight lanes of highway and two lanes of railway. It is the longest suspension bridge in the world that includes a rail system, according to the government officials.Istanbul's traffic, once named the worst in the world by a navigation company, cost precious time for commuters and motorists every year as a distance that normally takes only 15 minutes in the absence of traffic may sometimes stretch to about one hour. Authorities encourage mass transit but an ever-swelling population proves frustrating for comfortable travel in buses, metrobuses and subway services, which remain extremely crowded with little space to breathe especially during rush hours.Experts say that trucks significantly contribute to the heavy traffic, as Istanbul is both a commercial hub and the main crossing point for commercial transportation between Europe and Asia. The Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge aims to remove the heavy presence of trucks from traffic and help them bypass the inner city traffic by using the bridge located in a largely rural part of the city in the north.Soon, the bridge will be joined by the Eurasia Tunnel, another ambitious project to ease traffic. The tunnel, the first inter-continental underwater tunnel, will link Europe and Asia under the Bosporus and will carry cars and small buses on its two-deck, two-lane highway. It will cut travel time down to 15 minutes from more than one hour and will be located a few hundred meters from the Marmaray, an underwater rail line between the Üsküdar and Yenikapı districts where commuters can travel between two continents in a few minutes.It remains to be seen whether the bridge will ease traffic further in a city with more than 4 million registered vehicles and where people mostly prefer cars over public buses. For this reason, the city's municipality aims to expand its mass transit network by adding more metro lines from Istanbul's central districts to suburbs.Over the past decade, Turkey has undertaken large projects to expand the road and rail network. The bridge is a part of the North Marmara Highway that covers 257 kilometers including northern areas of Istanbul and cities near Istanbul. Another bridge on the Gulf of İzmit, south of Istanbul, was opened last month to cut travel times between Istanbul and other cities in the west, south and east. The Osman Gazi Bridge, the world's fourth longest suspension bridge with the largest central span, will decrease travel time between Istanbul and İzmir, the country's third largest city located in the west, from nine hours to about four hours, when its connecting roads are completed.