A six-firm consortium now is assembling loans for a $6.5-billion project to build a 377-kilometer-long, privately financed toll highway in Turkey. The project—from Gebze, near Istanbul, to Izmir—includes a suspension bridge that likely will incorporate the world’s second-longest span over the seismically active Izmit Bay. The Izmit bay crossing, with a 1,700 m span, “is still in the conceptual design stage,” says Simon Bourne, head of bridges at U.K.-based URS/Scott Wilson Ltd., Basingstoke. The firm, in a joint venture with AECOM, has a $15.9-million contract with the project consortium to supervise the bridge’s design and construction. The consortium Otoyol Yatirims