Minister Lilyana Pavlova: From Today onwards We Start the Traffic in Both Directions in One Lane of Section 2 of the Western Arc of Sofia Ring Road. The Layout Would be Fully Commissioned on September 14th

The transit traffic in section 2 of the Western Arc of Sofia Ring Road will be released at around 3 p.m. today. This became clear during the inspection performed today on the progress made during the site construction by the Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, the Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Lilyana Pavlova and the Chairman of the Management Board of Road Infrastructure Agency eng. Lazar Lazarov.

The physical execution of section 2 of the Western Arc of Sofia Ring Road amounts to 95%. We are ready to finalize and commission the site onSeptember 14th, precisely according to the deadline undertaken by the contractor before the Prime Minister, during the previous inspection, Pavlova reminded us of this. She explained that the traffic would be started in the new bridge, in both directions and in one lane, which would contribute for facilitating the traffic from the Ring Road from today onwards, thus making it easier to join the Northern Speed Tangent

Our job is about executing all transits that pass by Sofia, to unplug the bottlenecks in the city, the Prime minister underlined. He explained that the new layout would provide the transit connection between the Lyulin, Struma, Hemus and Trakiya Motorways and in the direction towards Belgrade, Serbia. We are already working on the bridge of the Ring Road in the region of Kazichene that is of 6 lanes. Projects are being elaborated to unplug the transit traffic in the region of housing complex Gorublyane and the villages of German and Lozen, thus we will finalize the whole ring around Sofia, and the layout of the Southern arc would be designated only for tourist vehicles. We will have to construct additionally only the last section between Tsar Boris III Blvd. and Bankya, he explained.

The regional minister reminded us that the second phase of the Western Arc is a project started in the end of last year under operational programme “Transport” at the value of 102 million BGN including VAT and highlighted the fact that the contractor managed to complete this complex site in less than nine months, without stopping the traffic. The section is almost 6 kilometers long and includes many heavy and complex facilities – three large road junctions from the ready road junction at three levels at Slivnitsa Blvd. where section 1 ends, to the connection with the Northern Speed Tangent, and four facilities.

The contractor had to work with constant traffic and the moment the new lanes were ready the traffic got transferred to them, in order to construct the parallel ones, Pavlova underlined.

At present all claims raised by the residents in the village of Mramor have been satisfied, engineer Lazarov informed us. He explained that they are connected to the existing road in the section of Kalotina Motorway towards Kostinbrod.

Section 2 of the Western Arc of Sofia Ring Road starts from the bridge above Kakach river and goes to the crossing with the Northern Speed Tangent. The construction includes building direct layout and reconstructing Sofia Ring Road in the section from km 0+780 to km 6+309. Along the site layout there are 3 road junctions – road junction Stefanson, road junction Lomsko shose and road junction Northern Speed Tangent, overhead road above the future Stefanson Blvd, new road for Voluyak Station and overpass above the road for the village of Mramor.

At road junction Stefanson the layout passes along the overhead road above Stefanson Blvd., the railway line and the road for Voluyak Station. The bridge facility is 344 meters long. We expect the convenience to increase for those travelling from and for Moderno Predgradie, Vrabnitsa and Obelya Housing Complexes after Sofia municipality builds the Stefanson Blvd.

At road junction Lomsko shose the layout passes along overhead road and Lomsko shose Blvd. is at the level of the existing road, where circular crossroad was built. The facility ensures connection for the residents of Obelya, Vrabnitsa and Nadezhda Housing Complexes, to the secondary road II-81 for Kostinbrod and Petrohan pass.

The connection of the Western Arc to the speed road is at road junction Northern Speed Tangent. The facility is a complete “clover road” and in it the traffic from and for Struma Motorway and Lyulin Motorway will make the connection with Trakiya Motorway and Hemus Motorway while passing through the tangent.

The contractor of section 2 of road ІІ-18 Sofia Ring Road from km 0+780 to km 6+309 is “European Roads” incorporated under the Obligations and Contracts Act, which includes: “GP Group” LTD, “Motorways – Black sea” JSC, and “Patstroyengineering” JSC. The contractual value amounts to 101 999 866,66 BGN including VAT. The construction supervision is being performed by Association “Sofia West 2013” that includes: “Patconsult 2000“ SP LTD, “Rutex” LTD, “Transconsult BG” LTD and “IRD engineering S.r.l.”. The contract amounts to 719 040 BGN including VAT. The project is co-funded by the Cohesion fund of the European Union and the national budget via Operational programme “Transport” 2007-2013 and Operational programme “Transport and transport infrastructure” 2014-2020.

The Western Arc is continuation of Lyulin Motorway and is part of Orient/Eastern Mediterranean Corridor which connects Vidin to Kulata at the territory of Bulgaria. Until the construction of Kalotina Motorway the heavy transit traffic from Kalotina to Trakiya Motorway and Hemus Motorway would be borne by the Western Arc of Sofia Ring Road.

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