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New Roads to Link Bulgaria's Ruse to Sofia-Varna Highway by 2020

Two brand new "
high-speed"
roads will link the Bulgarian Danube city of Ruse with the future Hemus Highway connecting Sofia and Varna through Northern Bulgaria, Ruse's District Governor Plamen Stoilov announced.

Stoilov gave a report Wednesday on his activities in his first two years in office.

Back in July 2011, Bulgaria's Road Infrastructure Agency formally said several of the so called "
high-speed roads"
would be added to the list of highways under construction as priority infrastructure projects of the Bulgarian government, according to Road Infrastructure Agency.

The so called "
high-speed roads"
will have two lanes in each direction;
however, they do not meet all requirements for being qualified as highways such as an emergency lane.

The future four-lane roads Ruse-Veliko Tarnovo and Ruse-Shumen will be brand new, and will circumvent the existing routes such as the Ruse-Byala-Veliko Tarnovo road, which is a major spot of traffic accidents.

The new Ruse-Veliko Tarnovo road will be designed by 2013, and will be completed by 2020, Ruse's District Governor explained Wednesday, as cited by BGNES. It will start at the so called Danube Bridge linking Bulgaria and Romania.

Currently, only 34% of the Hemus Highway have been constructed – that is, 145 km out of a total of 423 km.

The Hemus Highway is supposed to connect Sofia and Varna on the Black Sea through a shorter route than the southern Trakiya Highway (443 km), passing by several major northern cities – Pleven, Veliko Tarnovo, and Shumen. At present, however, only the start section from Sofia to Yablanitsa and the end section from Shumen to Varna have been completed.

Governor Stoilov promised that in addition to the infrastructure projects, in the next two years of his term (Bulgarian District Governors are appointed by the central government so their terms coincide with its term in office – editor's note) he would focus also on attracting strategic investors, absorption of EU funds, and work on the EU Danube Region Strategy.