The Meseș Tunnel () is a future automotive

tunnel A tunnel is an underground or undersea passageway. It is dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, or laid under water, and is usually completely enclosed except for the two portals common at each end, though there may be access and ve ...

located near

Zalău Zalău (, unofficial and former official name: (; or , , ) is the seat of Sălaj County, Romania. In 2021, its estimated population was 52,359. History Ancient times Zalău is situated in the area inhabited by "Free Dacians", away from the h ...

, in

Sălaj County Sălaj County (; ) (also known as ''Land of Silvania'', ''silva, -ae'' means "forest") is a Counties of Romania, county (''județ'') of Romania, located in the north-west of the country, in the Historical regions of Romania, historical regions of ...

Crișana Crișana (, , ) is a geographical and historical region of Romania named after the Criș (Körös) River and its three tributaries: the Crișul Alb, Crișul Negru, and Crișul Repede. In Romania, the term is sometimes extended to include areas ...

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

, which is planned be part of the route of the A3 Transylvania Motorway, specifically the

Poarta Sălajului Poarta may refer to several places in Romania: * Poarta, a village in Bran Commune, Brașov County * Poarta, a village in Fărăgău Commune, Mureș County * Poarta, a tributary of the Priboiasa in Vâlcea County * Poarta (Turcu) The Poarta is a ...

segment (subsection 3B3) (12,9 km). It is named after the

Meseș Mountains The Meseș Mountains (, ) are a mountain range in Transylvania, Romania, which belongs to the Apuseni Mountains. The highest peak is , at . The mountains are located in Sălaj and Cluj counties, south of Zalău and northwest of Cluj-Napoca. The ...

(), the mountain range belonging to the

Apuseni Mountains The Apuseni Mountains (, "Western Mountains"; , "Transylvanian Mountains") are a mountain range in Transylvania, Romania, which belongs to the Western Romanian Carpathians. The highest peak is the Bihor Peak at . The Apuseni Mountains have ab ...

, which forms part of the

Carpathians The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe and Southeast Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains ...

. When completed, it will be the longest road tunnel in Romania, being long,

Design

The Meseș Tunnel is one of the largest structures along the route of the Transylvania Motorway, the other one being the partially built

Suplacu de Barcău Viaduct The Suplacu de Barcău Viaduct () is a future viaduct between Suplacu de Barcău and Borș, Romania. 90% of its course is already built. The remaining part was abandoned by the American company Bechtel, on the route of the future A3 Transylvania ...

over the accumulation lake located at

Suplacu de Barcău Suplacu de Barcău (, ) is a Commune in Romania, commune in Bihor County, Crișana, Romania with a population of 3,813 as of 2021. It is composed of six villages: Borumlaca (''Baromlak''), Dolea (''Dólyapuszta''), Foglaș (''Fogás''; ''Fogaš'') ...

Bihor County Bihor County (, ) is a county (județ) in western Romania. With a total area of , Bihor is Romania's 6th largest county geographically and the main county in the historical region of Crișana. Its capital city is Oradea (Nagyvárad). Toponymy ...

. As part of a controlled-access highway, it will have two galleries, make use of

immersed tube An immersed tube (or immersed tunnel) is a kind of undersea tunnel composed of segments, Modular construction, constructed elsewhere and floated to the tunnel site to be sunk into place and then linked together. They are commonly used for road an ...

construction techniques and is planned to have two lanes per direction (4 in total) and sidewalks, but will not have an

emergency lane A shoulder (American English), hard shoulder (British English) or breakdown lane (Australian English) is an emergency stopping lane by the verge on the outer side of a road or motorway. Many wider freeways, or expressways elsewhere have should ...

(hard shoulder).

History

Feasibility studies

The original

feasibility study A feasibility study is an assessment of the practicality of a project or system. A feasibility study aims to objectively and rationally uncover the strengths and weaknesses of an existing business or proposed venture, opportunities and threats pr ...

for the Transylvania Motorway involved excavations 42 meters deep and 120 meters wide near

. Originally, the motorway section which presently includes the Meseș Tunnel, was scheduled to be built by the

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

company

Bechtel Bechtel Corporation () is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company founded in San Francisco, California in 1898, and headquartered in Reston, Virginia in the Washington metropolitan area. , the '' E ...

as part of the Transylvania Motorway (A3) that would connect

Brașov Brașov (, , ; , also ''Brasau''; ; ; Transylvanian Saxon dialect, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Kruhnen'') is a city in Transylvania, Romania and the county seat (i.e. administrative centre) of Brașov County. According to the 2021 Romanian census, ...

to the Hungarian

border Borders are generally defined as geography, geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by polity, political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other administrative divisio ...

and further to Central and Western Europe via

Târgu Mureș Târgu Mureș (, ; ; German language, German: ''Neumarkt am Mieresch'') is the seat of Mureș County in the historical region of Transylvania, Romania. It is the list of cities and towns in Romania, 16th-largest city in Romania, with 116,033 ...

Cluj-Napoca Cluj-Napoca ( ; ), or simply Cluj ( , ), is a city in northwestern Romania. It is the second-most populous city in the country and the seat of Cluj County. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest (), Budapest () and Belgrade ( ...

and Zalău (entirely 415 km), as the contract was awarded in 2004 to the company by the

Romanian government The Government of Romania () forms one half of the executive branch of the government of Romania (the other half being the office of the President of Romania). It is headed by the Prime Minister of Romania, and consists of the ministries, variou ...

, then led by

Adrian Năstase Adrian Năstase (; born 22 June 1950) is a Romanian jurist, academic/professor, blogger, and former politician who served as the prime minister of Romania from December 2000 to December 2004. He competed in the 2004 Romanian presidential elect ...

, with the deadline in 8 years. The contract with the American company was terminated in 2013, with only around 50 km completed. Two years later, the National Company of Motorways and National Roads of Romania (CNADNR) signed in April 2015 a contract with Tecnic Consulting Engineering Romania for a new feasibility study for a tunnel in the same area, at the price of 1 million lei for a period of 12 months. The auction for the feasibility study was launched in 2014, with the aim to avoid the excavation works in the same area that were decided in 2004. In June 2017, the route of the tunnel was established. With a length of , it would exceed the length of the 884 m long Capra-Bâlea tunnel on the

Transfăgărășan The Transfăgărășan (''trans'' + Făgăraș Mountains, ''Făgăraș''; Hungarian language, Hungarian: Transzfogarasi út) or DN7C is a paved mountain road crossing the southern section of the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. It has Roads in Ro ...

(DN7C), back then the longest tunnel by length in Romania, built in 1972 during the

communist regime A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state in which the totality of the power belongs to a party adhering to some form of Marxism–Leninism, a branch of the communist ideology. Marxism–Leninism was ...

, thus becoming the new longest tunnel. In July 2020, after over 5 years since the contract for the feasibility study was signed, the Romanian

Ministry of Transport A ministry of transport or transportation is a ministry responsible for transportation within a country. It usually is administered by the ''minister for transport''. The term is also sometimes applied to the departments or other government a ...

announced that it began preparations for beginning the expropriations necessary for the construction of the Meseș tunnel, and that the auction for the subsections 3B3 and 3B4 of the A3 motorway would be launched by 30 July 2020. During this phase, the CNAIR/CNADNR applied multiple penalties on the company working on the feasibility study due to the massive delays, in total worth 278.000 lei.

Auction

4 months after the first announcement, the

auction An auction is usually a process of Trade, buying and selling Good (economics), goods or Service (economics), services by offering them up for Bidding, bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from th ...

for the

segment (subsection 3B3) of the A3 motorway containing the Meseș tunnel, which also included the

- Nușfalău segment (subsection 3B4), totalling about 41,0 km, was announced in November 2020, with a cost of approximatively 800 million

euro The euro (currency symbol, symbol: euro sign, €; ISO 4217, currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the Member state of the European Union, member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the ...

s or 4 billion lei (excluding VAT). The contract involved projecting of the

motorway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms ...

section, a phase which would take 12 months to complete, followed by construction for another 36 months. Due to the high difficulty of the road section, the auction was with pre-qualification. The then-

Minister of Transport A ministry of transport or transportation is a ministry responsible for transportation within a country. It usually is administered by the ''minister for transport''. The term is also sometimes applied to the departments or other government a ...

, Lucian Bode, stated in the auction announcement that Sălaj's inhabitants should know that, in the condition that the builder will follow the deadline, all segments of the motorway located inside the Sălaj County will be available for use in "late 2024" or "early 2025". The

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...

''Asociația Pro Infrastructură'' stated in late November 2020 that it found a series of negative aspects in the documentation, from which includes the fact that only 6 drillings were made in the area of the tunnel's portals, among with other problems. As of early 2022, the auction for the subsection 3B3 is still ongoing, with the contract for the project and construction works yet to be signed.

References

{{Reflist, 2 Tunnels in Romania Proposed road tunnels in Europe

Design

History

Feasibility studies

Auction

See also

References