Bucharest A0 Nord lots 3 and 4 to open Wednesday after delay from 26 October

What opens on Wednesday

Lots 3 and 4 of the A0 Nord section of Bucharest's ring road are set to open to traffic on Wednesday, 4 November, at 14:00, adding about 13 km between Afumați and Glina. Transport Minister Ștefan Ovidiu Popa announced the opening on Tuesday, 3 November, in a Facebook post, noting that lot 4 between Pantelimon and Glina had already been received and would be released together with lot 3. Once drivers can use it, the stretch will give a direct connection between the A3 Bucharest-Ploiești and the A2 Bucharest-Constanța motorways, so transit traffic will no longer need to pass through the current city ring road. On Facebook, CNAIR director general Cristian Pistol confirmed the 14:00 start for the same day. Popa described the expected effect on traffic in these words:

“A0 takes over a significant part of the transit traffic from the capital area, eases congestion on urban arteries and improves connectivity between the main motorways in the region.”

Why the date slipped

The opening was first announced for 26 October 2026 by Horațiu Cosma, a former state secretary at the Transport Ministry, before CNAIR pushed it back. The agency said guardrails still had to be installed on lot 3 and that rainwater drainage systems needed to be finished. Pistol tied the timing to safety work, saying:

“We opened the two lots to traffic only after completing all the road safety works.”

Cosma, a USR member, accuses PSD president Sorin Grindeanu and Pistol of holding the opening back for political reasons. He claims builders had only a few hundred metres of guardrail left, a job he says would have taken two or three days, and that they were told to slow down. In his view, political rivalry rather than the state of the works explains the delay, and he has argued that lot 3 should have been finished a year earlier.

Construction and funding

Lot 3 is 8.6 km long and runs between Afumați and Pantelimon, and adevarul.ro says the Chinese company CCECC built it. Lot 4 covers 4.4 km from Pantelimon to Glina and was built by UMB, which HotNews says finished it in June, although it could not be used without the adjoining lot 3. The contract for lot 3 was worth 397.99 million lei excluding VAT, and the two lots together cost 710 million lei excluding VAT, all financed through the Transport Programme 2021-2027. Adevarul.ro says construction started in 2024, when Sorin Grindeanu was transport minister. Once lots 3 and 4 open, lot 1 North, a 17.5 km stretch between Joița on the A1 and Corbeanca on the DN1 being built by the Pizzarotti-Retter joint venture, will still need to be finished.

Lot 3 Afumați-Pantelimon8.6

Lot 4 Pantelimon-Glina4.4

Lot 3 Afumați-Pantelimon

8.6 km

Lot 4 Pantelimon-Glina

4.4 km

Data from the article text