NW 14:02:01 24-04-2015
SN1401NW.108
108 TRANSPORT - BULGARIA - ROMANIA - DANUBE BRIDGE 2

Millionth Car
Crosses
Danube Bridge 2


Vidin, on the Danube, April 24 (BTA) - Two years after Danube
Bridge 2 was put into operation the motor vehicle traffic
exceeds the forecast results, the CEO of the Bulgarian-Romanian
Danube Bridge Vidin-Calafat company, Lyubomir Nizamov, told BTA.
By 5:00 pm on April 23 one million trucks had crossed the
bridge.

On the Bulgarian side there are concerted efforts to develop
motor and railway transport across the bridge at Vidin, Nizamov
said. The design of the freeway between Vidin and Montana
(Northwestern Bulgaria) under OP Transport will be completed by
the middle of the year and funding from the European Investment
Bank will be sought for 2016. The freeway will ease traffic
along the infrastructure leading to Danube Bridge 2. The
implementation of the road projects will increase the traffic
load and the facility will reach its optimum parameters.

An average of 1,700 - 1,800 vehicles a day cross the bridge and
the forthcoming rehabilitation works at Rousse Bridge 1, which
are expected to begin next month, could quite possible cause a
considerable increase in the vehicles crossing Bridge 2. All
kinds of cash-free payments have been provided to help carriers.


Crossing Danube Bridge takes 3 to 5 minutes and the whole
procedure with border crossing takes about 10 minutes.

Railway traffic across the bridge has been insignificant over
the past two years, with two international Sofia-Budapest
trains crossing every day. The design of the Sofia-Vidin railway
line to Medkovets station (Northwestern Bulgaria) should be
ready by early April 2016. This is one of the priority projects
in the Trans-European transport network (TEN-T) and is to be
funded under Connecting Europe. This is also one of the
indicative projects with which Bulgaria will apply, Nizamov
said. The investment for the entire railway line to Sofia
exceeds 2,500 million euro. /LY/BR


/СН/