Across the Carpathians: The New TENT-T Highway that Makes Romania Run

As one of Europe’s most dramatic mountain ranges, the Carpathians Romanian mountains are home to virgin forests and abundant wildlife. Made famous by the legend of Count Dracula, they are also an imposing natural barrier that divides Romania into two.

Travel from one side to the other, especially along the DN7, is slow. And there are some sections of the highway where it can be particularly arduous, such as the one between Sibiu and Piteşti, two cities on either side of the mountain range. The old DN7 has only one lane in either direction, so when it is crowded with trucks, which it often is, travel can be rather unsafe.

With funding from the European Union, the country’s government, through the National Road Infrastructure Management Company (known by its Romanian acronym CNAIR), is working to improve travel between Sibiu and Piteşti with a new highway construction.

The 123-kilometre stretch, with two lanes in either direction, would be the final section of the new A1 highway to be built.Crossing the entire country from Nădlac on the Hungarian border to the Black Sea port of Constanța, the A1 is going to be part of the Rhine-Danube Corridor of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), an initiative designed to integrate the transport networks of EU member states.

The Sibiu-Piteşti section of the A1 is divided into five lots, two of which (Lot 3 and Lot 5) are under construction by Webuild, the Italian civil engineering group with a long presence in the country.

Lot 3 and Lot 5 are among the most important of the five because they will make up the first highway to cross the Carpathians. Another precedent that they will set is the use of a tunnel-boring machine (TBM) to bore a tunnel for the highway – a first for Romania.

By cutting travel costs and shortening journey times by an estimated one hour and half between Sibiu and Piteşti, this section of the A1 highway is expected to spur economic growth and improve the quality of life of the people who live in both cities.

In December 2024, Webuild delivered eight months ahead of schedule the first 15.7 kilometres of Lot 5 between the Bascov and Băiculești road junctions. The Group aims to complete the rest of the lot this summer. The lot’s total length will be 30.35 kilometres, connecting Curtea de Arges and Piteşti by passing through the towns of Băiculesti, Merisani, Budeasa and Bascov. There are another two kilometres for an interchange at Curtea de Arges and 1.5 kilometres in the small town of Băiculești.

Construction of the lot has required the construction of 21 structures, such as bridges and viaducts, for an overall length of 11 kilometres. At the height of the construction phase of the lot, there will be nearly 1,200 people employed.

Lot 3, meanwhile, stands to be the most complex part of the Sibiu- Piteşti highway construction because it will cross the Carpathians for 37.5 kilometres between Văleni and Racovița. It is to relieve traffic congestion along the section between the towns of Cornetu and Tigveni, providing a more suitable alternative to national roads, reducing traffic congestion and making vehicle travel safer.

It will include the construction of 48 bridges and viaducts totalling more than 13 kilometres, consolidation works and the construction of two road interchanges at Valeni and Cornetu.  There is also the construction of the 1.7-kilometre twin Poiana tunnel, which will set at least two precedents: the first time that a TBM is used to excavate a tunnel for a highway, which in turn will result in the longest highway tunnel in Romania. The type of TBM to be used will be an Earth Pressure Balance, or EPB. Its cutterhead will be 12.49 metres in diametre. Weighing 2,900 tons, it will be 88 metres long.

An ecoduct, intended for local wildlife overpass, is also planned to cross the Olt River. Since the Carpathians provide habitat for the largest European populations of brown bears, wolves, chamois, and lynxes, with the highest concentration in Romania, the ecoduct is an important feature of the project, enhancing its sustainability.

This wildlife bridge will enable animals to cross from one side to the other. At more than 300 metres in length and at least 100 metres in width, it will be the widest bridge of its type in Romania.

Webuild has completed approximately 50 projects in Romania, mostly for sustainable transportation. The most recent one to be delivered was the Brăila bridge over the Danube River. At 1,975 metres in length with a main deck of 1,120 kilometres, the Braila is the second longest suspension bridge on continental Europe.

Another notable project is the Basarab Overpass, a network of viaducts and bridges covering approximately 1.5 kilometres to accommodate the passage of vehicles and trams over a river in Bucharest.

One whose work sites are still full of activity is the modernisation of 48 kilometres of the Caransebes-Timisoara-Arad rail line in western Romania. It includes a 630-metre-long steel railroad bridge, four steel and concrete bridges with a maximum length of 21 metres, four overpasses and the modernization of six stations. The rail line will also be part of TEN-T’s Rhine-Danube Corridor.