EU funding has enabled the building of part of Romania’s A3 motorway and a stretch of dual carriageway in the historic Transylvania region. The roads pass through the country’s North-West and Centre development regions, both of which are in Macroregion one.
- 22 November 2019
The project consists of building 51.8 km of motorway between the city of Târgu Mureş, the municipality of Ogra and the city of Câmpia Turzii, and 4.7 km of dual carriageway near Târgu Mureş. Both sections of road have two lanes running in each direction and a central reservation.
The roads built under the project will shorten journey times between Târgu Mureş and Câmpia Turzii from about 90 minutes to 55 minutes, while making road travel in the area safer. This, allied to the roads’ position in a strategic European corridor, will contribute to economic growth in Transylvania, particularly by promoting tourism. The work thus has the potential to generate a range of benefits for local residents.
International road connections
With a planned length of 603 km, the A3 will, when completed, run from the junction with the Bucharest ring road through Transylvania and north-west Romania, before merging with Hungary’s M4 motorway at the border between the two countries. Like the A3, the M4 is under construction and will in time connect Budapest with the Romanian border.
The A3 is to pass several important Romanian cities, including Ploiești, Brașov, Cluj-Napoca and Oradea, all of which have populations of at least 200 000, as well as regional centres such as Făgăraș, Sighișoara and Zalău.
Expected to be completed in autumn 2019, the roads will form part of the core Trans-European Transport Network’s Rhine-Danube corridor, which provides a key east-west link across Europe, connecting the port of Constanţa on Romania’s Black Sea coast with Strasbourg in France.
The corridor also encompasses southern Germany, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Bucharest. A second branch extends from Frankfurt to the Slovak-Ukrainian border, linking Munich, Prague and the Slovak cities of Žilina and Košice.
From Moldova to Târgu Mureş
Home to more than 130 000 people roughly equally divided between Romanian- and Hungarian-speakers, Târgu Mureş is the seat of Mureș County and lies on the Mureș river, the second longest in Romania after the Danube. It is at one end of the planned A8 motorway, which will go from the border with Moldova, past Romania’s second city, Iași, and across the Carpathian mountains as far as the junction with the A3 outside Târgu Mureş.
Also in Mureș County is Ogra, a municipality composed of five villages: Dileu Vechi, Giuluș, Lăscud, Vaideiu and the village of Ogra itself. Together, the villages have a total population of around 2 500. With some 22 000 inhabitants, Câmpia Turzii is in Cluj County. It has sizeable numbers of Hungarian-speakers and Roma people and is the site of an important Romanian Air Force base.
Total investment and EU funding
Total investment for the project “Construction of Târgu Mureş–Ogra–Câmpia Turzii Motorway” is EUR 397 132 399, with the EU’s Cohesion Fund contributing EUR 246 678 761 through the “Large Infrastructure” Operational Programme for the 2014-2020 programming period.