Bucharest southern half-ring A0 opens, allowing motorists to bypass the capital completely
The last 18 km of the A0 southern half-ring, which circles the lower part of Bucharest, were officially opened for traffic on Monday, June 30. Authorities are hopeful that it will lead to less congestion in the city.
Radu Dumitrescu · Journalist
· Updated · 2 min read
The last 18 km of the A0 southern half-ring, which circles the lower part of Bucharest, were officially opened for traffic on Monday, June 30. Authorities are hopeful that it will lead to less congestion in the city.
By opening this lot, drivers will be able to completely avoid Bucharest’s Ring Road, a single-lane-per-direction road that is extremely congested, especially with trucks.
The road project for the segment began in 2019, with the signing of a design-and-build contract covering 42 months. The inauguration of the half-ring segment had been promised since 2023, but faced numerous delays.
The highway officially opened around 5 PM on Monday, and the site was visited by the Romanian transport minister Ciprian Șerban.
“Today we are opening the final 18 kilometers of the A0 southern half-ring, with a total length of 51 km. Practically, we will be able to drive from Curtea de Argeș to Constanța only on the motorway, over a distance of 395 kilometers,” he said.
The minister, nevertheless, mentioned that the Greek builder Aktor will face some penalties for delays, after an assessment from the National Road and Infrastructure Company, or CNAIR. Alin Șerbănescu, CNAIR spokesperson, previously told Economedia that the contractor will not escape penalties and that “any future participation in other contracts in Romania is doomed to failure, given the negative certificates the contractor has repeatedly received.”
Ciprian Șerban specified that by mid-July, the works for the connection between DEx 12 Craiova – Pitești and A1 will be completed, enabling motorway travel from Craiova to Constanța over a total distance of 464 km.
Also present, former transport minister Sorin Grindeanu stated that he would have liked this lot to be opened in the spring, but he congratulated the builders, explaining that “it was not a simple task,” due to blockages.
He mentioned that by the end of the year, another 4 kilometers of A0 North at Cernica and the Chinese-built lot on A0 North will be completed, so that the segment from DN1 to A2 will be finalized and almost the entire A0 will be open to traffic by the end of this year. “Also, the other two lots, lot 3 and lot 4 of the northern half-ring,” he said.
