[ad_1]
The European Commission has approved an investment of almost 900 million euros for the first phase of the construction of the Sibiu – Pitești motorway.
The project should be completed by 2026, according to the European Transport Commissioner, and would connect central and western Romania with the European motorway network. The good news is that work on the first batch, between Sibiu and Boița, started in March and is well advanced. Infrastructure experts say, however, that countless more verifications are needed to complete this project and that more money will undoubtedly be needed.
The Sibiu – Pitești motorway, a project that has been talked about countless times in recent years, now has an extra opportunity. The European Commission has approved an investment of almost 900 million euros from the Cohesion Fund.
Adina Vălean, European Commissioner for Transport: “The forecast is that the project will be ready in 2025. The European Commission attaches great importance to this financing because it means closing a missing section in the corridor that we lack, in the network corridor We have road safety , freight traffic, quality of life, all these things that are extremely important to complete this section, it is one of the most desirable roads, perhaps even the most necessary. “It is the first time that European funding has been requested. I think what has happened so far is that Romania has always tried to find financial alternatives, which in the end have not materialized. “
The Sibiu – Pitești road will be 122 kilometers long and will be divided into five blocks: Sibiu – Boița, Boița – Cornetu, Cornetu – Tigveni, Tigveni – Curtea de Argeș and Curtea de Argeș – Pitești. In addition, it will have eight road crossings and nine tunnels, being the first highway in Romania to cross the Carpathians.
Ionuț Ciurea, ProInfrastructura: “It is good news that we have been approved for this first section, but, unfortunately, it will not be enough. More money will have to come. We do not know exactly how difficult it will be to carry it out. The road through the brains of the mountains and because we do not know this, implicitly the financing and the afferent approvals of the ministry are delayed and then it takes a while until we are going to put on the road until we go in with the bulldozers and we put the asphalt we realize how much it will cost us ” .
Work on the first batch of the 13.17-kilometer highway between Sibiu and Boița began in March this year. The value of the design and execution contract for this lot amounted to more than 612 million lei, excluding VAT. The hardest part is going through the mountain, because more tunnels have to be built.
Ionuț Ciurea, ProInfrastructura: “We are talking here only 13 km, between Sibiu and Boița, to the entrance to the gorge. Then we have about 30 km for section 5, from Pitești to Curtea de Argeș. We are talking about 30 + 13 km from 123 km. Section 4 is constantly in the process of being elaborated, in the auction we have no builder, and the remaining 70 km, by far the most difficult, in the brain of the mountains, sections 2 and 3, are made of poplar “.
Right now, in Romania, 164 km of motorways and expressways are being built. If all the deadlines are met, in 6 years, we could go between Sibiu and Pitesti by highway. But infrastructure experts say the project could be completed much later.
