Editorial

There’s been a lot of moaning about the time it is taking to finish Transmission Gully and the disruptions caused by the building of the City Rail Link, but at least we do have decent roads and motorways.

Despite being around the same size as Aotearoa, Romania has only 806km of motorway network, with 58kms of that opened just last year.

Ionut Ciurea, director of Pro Infrastructure Association monitoring major motorway projects in Romania, said poor roads cost the economy billions every year, estimating around two percent of Romania’s GDP. “Este imens! (that’s huge!),” he stated.

Stefan Mandachi was so fed up he privately commissioned a one-metre-long stretch of motorway on a plot of land he owns next to a busy main road in Suceava, a city in a part of the country that has no stretches of motorway at all. It cost him EUR4400 (NZD 7513.15). He also called for a nationwide strike of 15 minutes on the day of the opening to support the move, which was widely upheld.

Many projects over the years have been plagued by corruption scandals. In 2016, a new motorway in southern Transylvania was nicknamed the Highway of Shame after it was inaugurated twice because it needed repair work almost immediately. It was then demolished a year later after a spate of safety concerns. Romania also has the EU’s highest rate of road deaths, with more dying on the roads each year than in the country’s 1989 revolution – around 1290. This is double the EU average. So, you see, things could be worse on this side of the world.