This year Hungary spent a record 566 billion forints (€1.71 billion) on expanding the country’s motorway infrastructure, a ministry official said at the opening of a new stretch of the M15 motorway near Rajka, close to the Slovak border.
Tamás Schanda, state minister of the Ministry of Innovation and Technology, said that in the past few years the budget could afford to allocate more resources to developing the country’s infrastructure due to sustained strong economic growth.
He highlighted that the government’s infrastructure development program calls for investing 5,000 billion forints on rail and road infrastructure, of which 3,200 billion forints – including 1,400 billion forints worth of European Union funds – will go towards road infrastructure.
He said the government’s plan calls for linking all major urban areas to a motorway, completing all existing motorways so they extend to the nearest border and ensuring that a four-lane road is available within a half-hour drive from every point of the country.
Schanda said there are currently 15 active motorway projects in Hungary. all of which are expected to be completed by 2022.
A new bridge over the Danube River to Slovakia located between Komárom and Komarno is also nearing completion and should be opened to traffic sometime next year.
Title image: M1 motorway in Hungary (Origo/Imre Tevan)
