Of the 1370 km of Planned Highways Only Half are Ready

A total of nine are the planned for construction motorways in Bulgaria and their total length is 1370 km. To date, however, only half of these kilometers (777 km) are completed and put into operation, while another 32 km are under construction, calculated by the Union of Bulgarian Motorists.

In 1964, the Bulgarian government decided to build a motorway ring consisting of the Trakia, Hemus and Black Sea highways. The implementation of this plan began with the construction of the road sections Sofia-Ihtiman and Varna-Devnya in 1973. Democracy witnesses only 274 km of finished motorways constructed under socialism, that is, an average of 17 km per year. In the next 16 years until the country's accession to the EU in 2007, about 150 km were built, averaging 9.3 km per year, the accounts show. "The boom of highway construction" is in 2015, when 124 km are in use. These sections, however, have begun to be built at different times in different governments.

The nine highways are Trakia, Hemus, Struma, Maritsa, Cherno more, Lyulin, Kalotina and Veliko Tarnovo - Rousse. In the beginning of 2018, however, the picture of the highway shows only four fully completed highways. Their total length is about 512 km. The longest route is Trakia highway. Its 360 km were built for 42 years. 100% are in operation Maritsa (117 km), Lyulin (19 km) and the North tangent (16,5 km).

In the current year, the government promises to start building new sections on the Hemus highway. These are the stretches between Yablanitsa and Boaza (9.3 km) and Buhovtsi-Belokopitovo (16 km). These stretches must be ready by 2020. However, this will not make it much easier for drivers to stay on the road for more than 220 km. So far the sections Sofia - Yablanitsa and Belokopitovo - Varna are...