site.btaCar Traffic at Ruse-Giurgiu Danube Bridge Back to Normal

Car traffic at the Danube Bridge border checkpoint between Ruse in Bulgaria and Giurgiu in Romania was intense on Saturday and Sunday, but is back to normal on Monday, said the border control authorities on Monday.

A total of about 14,000 cars crossed the checkpoint in the direction of Romania. On Saturday alone there were over 8,000 cars, vans and buses.

On normal days, between 3,000 and 4,000 cars cross the bridge in the direction of Romania. On Sunday, again about 6,000 cars crossed the bridge in one direction.

On Monday, cars have to wait some 10 minutes to cross the bridge.

The border authorities also informed that a total of 1,521 trucks passed through the facility in both directions over the last 24 hours. Of these, 640 entered Bulgaria, and 881 left the country. The reason for the fewer processed trucks was the extremely intense traffic of passenger cars during the weekends, the border authorities said.

"It took me about three hours from the parking lot to the border crossing. There is a lot of traffic. There should be more counters for document processing," truck driver Ventsislav Kirov told BTA. He was on his way to Austria.

On July 10, Bulgaria started a major overhaul of the Bulgarian section of the 70-year-old Danube Bridge, which is why the traffic is carried out in only one lane and Border Police officers regulate the traffic in the area of construction activities.