Romania's longest highway tunnel: Its construction could be completed after 2030.

March 05, 2025

The 41-kilometer highway section located in Sălaj County, including the largest planned road tunnel in Romania, must be completed by 2031. The Meseș Tunnel near Zalău will cost over one billion lei. Romania's longest road tunnel has been planned on a 41-kilometer section of the Transilvania Highway (A3), which is being constructed on the Brașov - Cluj - Borș route. Construction work commenced in the mid-2000s following the contract signing between the Romanian state and the Bechtel corporation but was suspended a decade later. Tenders for the unfinished sections have restarted in recent years, with some projects needing redesign. This section, spanning 166.5 kilometers and initiated with new contracts, cuts through Cluj, Sălaj, and Bihor counties, reaching the border with Hungary, and integrates into the expansive Transilvania Highway. A Turkish-led consortium was awarded the contract. Currently, most of the highway between Gilău and Borș is under construction, with two sections totaling about 20 kilometers already completed. In November 2024, the National Company for Road Infrastructure Administration announced the winner for the Poiana Sălajului - Zalău - Nușfalău section (41 kilometers) through a public procurement process. This bid was won by a consortium led by the Turkish company Makyol. "The contract is valued at 6.62 billion lei (excluding VAT), and includes the construction of the Meseș Tunnel (2.89 km), which will be the longest tunnel on a Romanian highway. The Turkish companies' consortium awarded the contract has 78 months (18 months for planning, 60 months for execution) to complete the Poarta Sălajului-Zalău and Zalău-Nușfalău sections (Transilvania Highway). In total, 65 viaducts, bridges, and overpasses will be constructed over this part of the A3 highway, with an aggregate length of approximately 13 kilometers," stated Sorin Grindeanu, Minister of Transport, at that time. The procurement result was contested by two companies, however, at the end of February, the Public Procurement Appeal Board rejected their claims, thus allowing for the contract to be signed soon, according to economedia.ro. The design and construction of the 41-kilometer highway section in Sălaj County, financed as part of the Transport Program, represents the largest road infrastructure contract in Romania in recent years. This is especially notable due to the nearly three-kilometer tunnel that will be built next to Zalău, through the Meseș Mountains. Why was the tunnel chosen? The construction of the Meseș Tunnel was not part of the highway's original project, initiated in the early 2000s. The original plan was re-evaluated, and a decade later the tunnel was proposed to reduce the highway's environmental impact and to avoid extensive earthworks below the natural ground level. "By the February 18, 2009, permit number 3260 from the CTE-CNADNR, it was approved to replace the originally proposed deep valley crossing solution with a medium-length 2,800 meter tunnel with independent passages in each direction of the highway. The permit number 4606 from the CTE-CNAIR on February 7, 2017, established the variation of the highway profile route with the tunnel in the Meseș area on subsection 3B3. The Feasibility Study for the Meseș Tunnel was approved by the permit number 4817 from CTE-CNAIR on February 13, 2019," pointed out a 2019 Romanian government decision regarding the Transilvania Highway. Thus, a tunnel technical solution was chosen for crossing the Meseș Mountains in place of deep valley crossings that, in the original 2003 feasibility study, were over 42 meters deep and 120 meters wide, considering the significant environmental impact, poor soil quality, and necessary measures to reinforce and stabilize the original solution, states the decree number 739/2019. In 2023, CNAIR launched a procurement for the infrastructural project, with the tunnel construction cost estimated to be over one billion lei, excluding VAT. Named after the Meseș Mountains, the tunnel will be located southeast of Zalău, between Ciumărna and Crasna in Sălaj County, spanning 2.8 kilometers with two passages, each with two traffic lanes in both directions. The intended design speed is 120 km/h. The tunnel's first gate will be at the 34+260 kilometer marker, featuring a concrete and asphalt platform leading to the tunnel entrance, continuing with the two passages up to the 37+146.50 kilometer marker, where the second gate will be, followed again by a concrete platform. The tunnel's route is horizontally aligned with a left turn, a straight section, then another left turn, and a constant gradient of 1.03 per thousand.

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