site.btaNew Stretch of Strouma Motorway Goes under Construction

New Stretch of Strouma Motorway Goes under Construction

Blagoevgrad, Southwestern Bulgaria, August 30 (BTA) - A groundbreaking ceremony took place near the Village of Mikrevo on Tuesday for Lot 3.3 of the Strouma Motorway. The 23.6 km stretch will link Kresna and Sandanski. Regional Development and Public Works Minister Liliyana Pavlova, Road Infrastructure Agency Management Board Chairman Lazar Lazarov, MPs, mayors and builders attended the event.

The road section will have two junctions (Stroumyani and Sandanski), 25 major facilities: bridges over seven rivers, an overfly of the Sofia-Koulata railway, nine agricultural underpasses and overpasses, four rest sites with toilets, etc. This is the first motorway stretch that will come complete with smart transport systems: stations for traffic counting and management, video surveillance, vehicle weight measuring and weather monitoring.

The project is co-financed by Operational Programme Transport. The contractor is a consortium of GBS Infrastructure Construction AD, Patstroy 92 AD, Glavbolgarstroy AD and Geostroy AD. The construction contract is worth 234,123,012 leva before VAT, and construction supervision (by Patinvestengineering EOOD) will cost 2,998,161.28 leva.

"The works are due for completion in the spring of 2018, but the builders are experienced and I hope that the project will be finished six months early, in the autumn of 2017, so that the new road will be opened to traffic for the winter, when the tourist flow increases," Pavlova said. She noted that the State will be uncompromising about the quality of work. The Minister added that actual construction of Strouma Lot 3.1, Blagoevgrad-Kroupnik, will also start shortly.

The 150 km Strouma Motorway runs between the Daskalovo junction with the Lyulin Motorway (Southwestern Bulgaria) and Koulata (on Bulgaria's border with Greece). A total of 85 km of the motorway are ready (Pernik-Blagoevgrad and Melinik-Koulata), and 65 km remain to be built.