Road repairs to begin on hazardous stretch of Bulgaria’s Trakiya Motorway
September 2020 will see the beginning of road repairs of about 50km of Bulgaria’s Trakiya Motorway, on a stretch in poor condition that has seen numerous accidents, some fatal.
Trakiya Motorway links Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia to Bourgas on the southern Black Sea coast.
On the stretch in particularly poor condition, for many months the speed limit has been 90km/h, instead of the 140km/h standard for motorways in Bulgaria.
For those that keep to this speed limit – not all do – that lengthens the time to go to and from the seaside, while lessening the risk of an accident or damage to the car.
Bulgarian media reported earlier this year that several thousand motorists had been fined for breaking the speed limit on the stretch, which is mottled with potholes and an otherwise uneven road surface.
Among the most severe accidents was one on July 12 2020, in which the driver of a Turkish-registered goods lorry lost control of the vehicle, colliding with five cars before the lorry overturned and caught fire. Several people died and others were seriously injured. Another accident, also involving a lorry, happened at the same spot a week later, though there were no fatalities.
A report by Bulgarian National Television on September 5 said that the repair work between the 156th and 208th km would begin in a few days and continue until the end of 2020.
The work will involve, among other things, reinforcement of the road surface, replacement of all layers of asphalt and improvement of drainage. The repairs will cost about 89 million leva (about 45.5 million euro).
Ivan Dosev of Bulgaria’s Road Infrastructure that the delay in travelling time because of the lowered speed limit amounted to no more than 11 minutes.
“If you compare that with the statistics we have from our colleagues at the Traffic Police, it can very well be concluded that those 11 minutes saved many lives,” Dosev told BNT.
(Archive photo of earlier repair work on Trakiya Motorway: Road Infrastructure Agency)
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