The company to build the most technically difficult section of the North Transylvania motorway has been chosen

The tender for the construction of the Vaskapu-Szilágynagyfalu section of the North Transylvanian motorway, which has been under construction for 20 years, has been closed with the Turkish consortium led by Makyol winning the tender, the economedia.ro news portal reported, according to a statement by the National Road Infrastructure Authority (CNAIR).

Nearly 3 kilometres of tunnel also under construction on the final section

The contractor is to build the final 41-kilometre section of the motorway between Portile de Fier in the county of Silajdo and Nusfalau in the county of Silajdo.

The project includes the construction of a 2.89-kilometre tunnel under the Meské Mountains near Zilah. Construction is planned to take 78 months, 18 months of which will be spent on design.

The net value of the winning bid is RON 6.62 billion, or HUF 543.502 billion.

Twenty years of construction on the A3 motorway

The construction of the North Transylvania motorway started on 16 June 2004 in the area of Savadisla, near Cluj Napoca. The Romanian government awarded the contract for the construction of the motorway to the US company Bechtel in 2003 without a public procurement procedure. The contracted value of the project was USD 2.2 billion (USD 826.782 billion) and the delivery deadline was 2013.

The original plan was to run 415 kilometres from the Romanian-Hungarian border to Brasov, but was later shortened to 282 kilometres, with Târgu Mures as the eastern terminus.

The Bucharest government terminated the contract in 2013. In ten years, Bechtel has built 52 kilometres of motorway in full and 64 kilometres in part for a total cost of $1.5 billion (HUF 563.715 billion).

Traffic now allowed on 130 kilometres of motorway

Currently, there are 130 kilometres of continuous traffic on the North Transylvanian motorway between Târgu Mures and Nadaselu near Cluj-Napoca.
In the meantime, the sections Bors II - Bihor (5.35 kilometres) and Berettyószéplak - Szilágynagyfalu (13.55 kilometres) have also been opened.

The construction of the Magyarnádas-Vaskapu motorway section is underway, while the Biharea-Bistraterebes (Chiribis) and Bistraterebes-Suplacu de Barcau (Suplacu de Barcau) sections are in the planning stage.

Under the construction contracts, the last section to be completed is the Iron Gate-Szilágynagyfalu section, due for completion in 2031.