The Henri-Konan-Bédié Bridge is a toll highway bridge connecting the municipalities of Cocody and Marcory in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. Opened in December 2014, it saves significant time (often over an hour's travel time) between the two districts separated by the Ébrié Lagoon and relieves congestion on the city's only two other bridges, located further west: the Félix-Houphouët-Boigny Bridge, built in 1957, and the Général-de-Gaulle Bridge, built in 1967. Built in three years by the Bouygues Construction group, it was considered one of the largest infrastructure projects in West Africa and is a symbol of Côte d'Ivoire's economic revival, which had been gripped by a major crisis four years earlier. The foundation stone of the bridge, then named Riviera-Marcory, was laid on January 18, 1999. Construction was abruptly interrupted following the coup d'état of December 24, 1999, which occurred a few days after the project's financing was secured and never resumed throughout the political and military crisis. It wasn't until 2008 that the political will to resume construction resurfaced. During 2011, with the normalization of the political situation, new contracts were signed, allowing the resumption of construction, marked by a new official ceremony on September 7, 2011, attended by then-President Alassane Ouattara and former President Henri Konan Bédié, after whom the bridge, which would become the longest in Côte d'Ivoire, was named.
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