Highway 4 will be Made Safer with the Help of EU Funding18 March 2009
The road surface along two sections of Highway 4 will be reinforced within the framework of the New Hungary Development Plan. The assistance contract of the section in Hajdú-Bihar County was signed on 17 March, whilst the assistance contract of the Nyírbogdány section was signed one week earlier. The two projects with a total budget of over 8.9 billion HUF will be completed by autumn 2010.
Highway 4 is the longest and busiest highway in Hungary. Both passenger and freight traffic is heavy along Highway 4 and the ratio of accidents along this highway is high in relation to national figures.
The assistance contract aimed at reinforcing the section of the highway in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County to make it suitable for use by vehicles with an 11.5-tonne axle load was signed in the presence of Mr Csaba Molnár Minister for Transport on 12 March 2009. The objective of this investment is to reinforce the capacity of the poor and damaged road surface along the county section of the highway, as a result of which transit traffic between Hungary and Ukraine will become safer. The programme will be implemented in two phases; the present assistance contract concerns the second phase of the programme, i.e., sections subject to a building permit. Once the two phases are completed, the entire Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County section of the highway will have been upgraded and made suitable for use by vehicles with an 11.5-tonne axle load; new junctions will be built along the concerned section and access to the region will improve.
The total cost of the first phase that began in summer 2008 and will be completed by October 2009 amounts to 2.8 billion HUF. The total cost of the project is equivalent to 5.6 billion HUF and is fully financed by EU funding.
The assistance contract underpinning developments to be implemented with the help of EU funding along the section of Highway 4 in Hajdú-Bihar County was signed on 17 March. Road reinforcements enabling use by vehicles with 11.5-tonne axle load must be completed within the framework of the project up to the bypass road around Hajdúszoboszló built back in 2003; this 2x1-lane section is 26 kilometres long. In addition to the reinforcement of the road surface, the renewal of 4 junctions and the public lighting network, as well as the bridge spanning the Eastern Channel will also be carried out. The total cost of the investment beginning in autumn 2009 amounts to 3.3 billion HUF, out of which 2.8 billion HUF is covered by EU funding. The road is expected to be open to traffic in summer 2010.