Controlled-access highway

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov estimated that BGN 5 B will be needed for the completion of two of the country's main motorways - Hemus and Struma as well as section of the I-1 (E-79 European route) in the country's northwest.

Borisov said this on Tuesday at the official opening ceremony of the by-pass around the town of Montana.

Traffic police estimates that more than 200 000 vehicles will leave the Bulgarian capital of Sofia on Wednesday and Thursday as the great travel for the forthcoming holidays begins.

The head of the Bulgarian Road Infrastructure Agency (API), Lazar Lazarov, assured on Tuesday that no roads in the country will be closed during the forthcoming holiday period.

Lazarov added that all repair works, which have been carried out on the Trakia and Hemus motorways during the summer and autumn, have been completed and the renovated sections have been opened.

A super motorway that would connect the eastern border of Russia with Alaska in the United States was proposed by Russia.

The plan, presented by the head of Russia Rail Vladimir Yakunin, also calls for a high-speed railway to be built alongside the motorway, while both routes would support new cities and industries created as a result of the construction, the Siberian Times writes.

Maritsa motorway in Bulgaria is now fully completed after the section between Orizovo and Dimitrovgrad was officially launched on Thursday.

Thus Maritsa has become the third fully completed motorway in Bulgaria after Trakia and Lyulin.

Maritsa has a total length of 117 km and is part of Pan-European Corridor IV.

A landslide has hampered traffic on Lyulin motorway linking Bulgaria's capital city of Sofia with the border with Greece on Sunday.

The landslide has closed two of the three right-hand side lanes of the motorway between the first and the second tunnel in the direction of Sofia, the government's Road Infrastructure Agency announced.

At least two people died and two other were heavily injured after a multiple vehicle collision occurred in one of the tunnels of Hemus motorway on Thursday.

The collision, which involved more than fifty vehicles, occurred in the tunnel of Vitinya in the direction of Varna.

An automated data acquisition and analysis system for road traffic data from motorways and first-class roads is to be completed by end-October, according to Bulgaria's Road Infrastructure Agency (RIA).

Repairing all roads in the country would cost BGN 12 B by 2020, according to Regional Development Minister Lilyana Pavlova.

Speaking Monday at a forum on construction in 2016, she noted that there was no opportunity to provide such large amounts of money and the authorities were striving to secure funding for 5-6 priority projects.

Bulgaria's Interior Ministry has advised people traveling to Greece to avoid the Kulata and Makaza border crossing points due to the kilometers-long queues of vehicles.

Traffic on the roads and motorways leading to the Bulgarian-Greek is intensive due to the decision of a large number of people to head for Greece for the four non-working days until September 22.