It will be possible to travel on the route between Dragoman and the Serbian border for a maximum of 3-4 months
The 15-kilometer section of the “Europe” highway between Dragoman and the Kalotina checkpoint will be opened in 3-4 months, Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev learned after a construction inspection on Monday. by the regional minister Ivan Shishkov.
However, at least initially, the motorway will not have a connection to the border crossing itself, because the last 150 meters have not yet been planned. Furthermore, there will be no paid parking and the trucks will have to park in the lane itself, which in the event of heavy traffic will create kilometers of traffic jams, emerged from the explanations of the two ministers.
The highway according to the project ends about 150 meters before the point, because when the project was prepared, the water and electricity lines had to be moved. However, this requires new plots of land, which entails the need for further expropriation procedures and a new detailed development plan. The procedure
was launched in August,
but it can’t end so fast. We still need an opinion from the Ecoministry, a building permit, a restyling, etc., and all this will only further delay the construction, which is already unscheduled. This section of the highway was to be started as early as early 2022.
A car park has yet to be designed and built, as none is planned. Therefore, according to their own words, on Monday Shishkov and Demerdzhiev toured the surroundings and found, with the help of the mayor of Dragoman, two suitable parking places.
Despite all this, however, the section will be put into operation, albeit with a provisional organization of the road system. If the weather conditions in the coming months do not allow, it may even come to the point that the last kilometers of the road will be started without the top layer of asphalt and it will be laid in the spring.
Haste is necessary because the “Europe” motorway project will have to be definitively completed by the end of 2023, when the last period in which the funds of the already concluded “Transport” Operational Program 2014-2021 can be absorbed will expire.
Whatever is done, however, there will be delays, as the third, final section of the highway from the capital is not yet under construction.
“The section between Slivnica and Sofia will be delayed because it will have to be built legally after the building permit enters into force. And that
it won’t be until the next three or four months,
because it is necessary to expropriate the land that will be affected by the construction of the route. The delay in this section is the biggest, and there is no one to return the seven months lost due to the lack of a detailed development plan. Unfortunately, the end of 2023 will not be the time when the highway will be completed in its entirety,” said Minister Shishkov.
What the new border crossing will be is also not yet clear. The structure according to the project has a much greater capacity than the previous station, but the term for its construction is 180 days. Yesterday Demerdzhiev contented himself with saying only that during construction care will be taken not to obstruct traffic.
