The Black Sea Coastal Highway Project was initiated in 1987 to ease the access to the Black Sea region and to increase its economic activity. The objective of the project was to construct an uninterrupted highway from Samsun to Artvin, including 6 coastal cities. Mostly due to financial problems, the project was completed in 20 years and opened to traffic in 2007. The roads have been built along the sea, following the coast line and relatively higher than the sea level, disrupting and destroying the cities access and connection to the shore. Consequently, several conflicts emerged in those cities. In 1994, the people of Ordu protested against the damage the highway would create and the 5km part of the road passing by Ordu was interrupted. The construction of the road in the Trabzon region was also suspended in 2004, but later the decision was overruled by the State Council. Despite all objections, disputes and resistance, the highway was opened in 2007.

As the highway started to be used, there was an obvious decrease in the relation to the sea of the cities and this inequity in access to resources caused another series of conflicts. The highways damage on the rivers is another source of dispute. Unfortunately, these conflicts remained mainly local, having almost no repercussions in the media.

For the construction of the Black Sea Coastal Highway, the project costs approximately 4,2 billion dollars.

million cubic meters of deposit/fill, 180 million tons of fortification and 3 million cubic meters of concrete were used/produced.

By means of excavation, the total length of the highway was reduced by 17 kilometres from 559 down to 542 kilometres.

kilometres of the excavations were realized in the Bolaman-Persembe road and 2 kilometres in the Samsun freeway. The project includes 263 bridges totalling 27 kilometres, 12 single tube tunnels totalling 41 kilometres and 20 double tube tunnels totalling 18.5 kilometres.

The first big part of the highway stretching from Samsun to Sarp Frontier put out to tender in 1987 was for the part between Carsibasi-Trabzon-Arakli, where traffic was heaviest.

Because the necessary allowance was not granted from the national budget for this and the following tenders, the project did not advance as planned. In order to meet the deadline and finish the highway, as of 1997 it was decided to put out the remaining parts to tender with foreign credits. Out of 16 sections, 12 were externally credited, 4 were covered by the national budget.