A PPP project is being examined regarding the upgrading of the «congested» eastern section of Thessaloniki Ring Road, by the Ministry of Infrastructure. This is one of the projects announced by the Greek PM, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, at the 84th Thessaloniki International Fair, a few days ago, ypodomes.com reports.
According to the site’s sources, the PPP option may succeed as it has already been applied in two other motorway tenders (i.e. Crete’s VOAK and Kalamata-Methoni road axes). The big benefit of this solution, if selected, will be the absence of tolls (although it has not been definitely decided).
This offers a great advantage to this method if it is taken under consideration that the cost will reach 300m euros. If it proceeded as a public project it could be quite difficult as it would require a large amount of money from NSRF, a process that, based on former experience, is very time-consuming.
A concession solution would lead to toll stations and would turn the Ring Road into another Attiki Motorway of Thessaloniki, which neither the Ministry nor the local authorities probably want.
The principal idea of the project is the creation of a fly-over with 2 lanes of traffic per direction. It will start from Papageorgiou Hospital and reach Konstantinopolitika area, with a length of about 4 km.
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