\n
<\/p>\n
Upon taking over
\nas Transport Minister at the end of February, Razvan Cuc promised he would
\nspend more time in road infrastructure construction sites across the country
\nrather than in his cozy office in Bucharest. The press has since been monitoring
\nhis visits on the ground. On Sunday, Minister Cuc inspected progress on
\nrepair works for the A1 motorway, linking Bucharest to Pitesti.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Can you see the traffic here? At 3 PM it will be at a standstill. Do
\nyou find it acceptable that drivers should hoot their horns all the time? The
\ncontract was signed in November, and the concrete stripping process kicked off
\nin April. This is unacceptable! You have 24 hours to come up with solutions. I
\nwant to see the works completed within 30 days! <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
On Friday
\nMinister Razvan Cuc visited Satu Mare County in the northwest, to inspect the
\nconstruction site for the Satu Mare beltline, and on Saturday he traveled to
\nSalaj, in the center: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
I want to see results, I want to see open construction sites, I want to
\nopen as many construction sites as possible all over the country, and wherever
\npromises were made but not upheld, or the deadline was not met, the directors’
\nposition will be forfeit. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Everyone knows
\nthe theory – without an appropriate infrastructure, the number of road traffic
\naccidents will not go down, and the time spent in traffic will not decrease.
\nEvery day five people die in road accidents in Romania. In the over 30,000
\naccidents produced every year, some 2,000 people lose their lives. Romania
\nranks last at EU level in terms of road traffic safety. 30 years since the
\nanti-communist revolution and 12 since Romania joined the EU, our country still
\ndoesn’t have a motorway that crosses the Carpathians. At the end of 2018,
\nRomania had merely 800 km of motorway, of which 100 were built under dictator
\nNicolae Ceausescu. Romania still doesn’t have motorways linking the center to
\nthe south of the country, or the center to the east of the country. The few
\nmotorway strips built so far are ensuring passage out of the country instead of
\nallowing people from Transylvania to get to Bucharest or to the Black Seacoast
\nmore easily. Most are two-lane roads crossing towns and villages every 10
\nkilometers, with speed limitations, unsignaled cyclists, tractors, horse-driven
\ncarts, construction works, obstacles and scores of unsignaled potholes. This
\nall turns a 350-km trip into a six-hour ordeal. There are currently laws
\ncompelling the state to take priority in dealing with these projects. The
\nEuropean Union has been begging the authorities in Bucharest to attract EU
\nfunds for the construction of high-speed roads. Still, things are advancing
\nvery slowly. Easier said than done! The carelessness of previous
\nadministrations and bureaucracy were the main obstacles, in addition to
\nawarding contracts to builders whose main goal was to swell their profits. <\/p>\n
(Translated by V. Palcu)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The situation of transport infrastructure in Romania demands swift and large-scale action<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":81748,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[39662,39663,32505,33230],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-81747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-construction-sites","tag-motorways-in-romania","tag-razvan-cuc","tag-road-infrastructure"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n