Traffic congestion on Bulgaria’s Trakia motorway, Serbian border
Long queues of cars were causing traffic congestion on Bulgaria’s most-travelled motorway and at the main checkpoint on the border with Serbia on August 30, local media reported.
On Trakia motorway, congestion on the lanes leading to Sofia had formed at the site of ongoing maintenance works near Pazardjik. The Trakia motorway is Bulgaria’s busiest during summer months, when there is extensive traffic by holiday-makers travelling between the capital city and Bourgas on the Black Sea coast.
The repairs work on the motorway comes at the tail end of the peak holiday season in Bulgaria. On August 25, a 10-km traffic jam had formed there, with motorists saying that the traffic police made no effort to detour traffic.
Motorists were advised by Bulgaria’s Road Infrastructure Agency on August 26 to bypass the repairs site by taking a detour through the town of Belovo. This did not prevent another, smaller traffic jam on August 29, as reported by Focus news agency.
The queue on August 30 had reached five km in length at about 2.30pm local time; among the possible reasons for the high number of cars could be increased traffic by Turkish migrant workers crossing Bulgaria by car on their way to western Europe, but also people travelling to Sofia for Roger Waters: The Wall Live concert in the city.
At Kalotina, the Turkish migrant workers were the main reason for the traffic congestion, the Interior Ministry said. Motorists were advised to re-direct to other border checkpoints – Bregovo, Strezimirovtsi and Vrushka Chouka, which were operating normally.
All checkpoints on the border with Serbia were supplemented with additional staff in order to keep them working at full capacity, the ministry said. Traffic on the Bulgarian-Serbian border is expected to remain strong throughout the weekend, the ministry said.
(Photo: Bruno Girin/flickr.com)
