Less than half of the 920 kilometers long highway is open for traffic at the moment, according to a ZF analysis. Nonetheless, authorities say next year vehicles will be able to use the highway without interruption from Sibiu to Nadlac. It will be the first highway to cross Romania east through west. Late last year, the Ponta administration announced that building a highway between Sibiu and Bucharest which would pass through Brasov and Ploiesti was a priority, to the detriment of an alternative route passing through Pitesti.

Almost 530 km of the 850 km of Nadlac-Constanta highway transiting Pitesti are currently open for traffic. According to ZF, the overall construction cost for this highway – the route which passes through Sibiu and Pitesti – would be EUR 5.5 billion, including the cost of execution for stretches of highway and beltways in the main transit towns. In other words, the average cost would be EUR 6.5 million per kilometer.

On the other hand, the overall construction cost for the same highway, but taking into the account the route which passes through Sibiu and Brasov, would be EUR 5.8 billion, at EUR 6.3 million per kilometer on average, according to ZF’s calculations. Dan Sova, Minister for Major Projects, recently stated that a straight-line highway between Vienna and Sibiu will be finalized in 2015, given that the missing stretches of Nadlac-Sibiu highway – from Nadlac to Arad, Timisoara to Lugoj (second lot), Lugoj to Deva (second, third, and fourth lots), and from Orastie to Sibiu – are already scheduled to be inaugurated by next year. (source: nineoclock.ro)