A new project that will make it easier to connect Yanina With Greek-Albanian borderannounced yesterday Ministry of Infrastructure. This is the axis that will connect Ioannina, essentially from the end of the Ionia road, to the Kakavia border station. The project has gone through many waves in recent years: characteristically it was rejected in the past due to its assignment to Ionia Odos, its inclusion first in the NSRF and then in the Recovery Fund. The project was revised to reduce the cost and include it in the new SPRF for 2021-2027.

Thus, the project after completion will have a length of 70 km and a budget of 310 million euros (another 92 million euros are preliminarily issued in the NRF for archaeological work, the transfer of engineering networks and expropriations). The road will have two lanes (plus LEA) in each direction of traffic and a maximum speed of 100 km (the main difference from the original design to be included in the NSRP is the reduction in the cross-section of the road). road). The project must be included in the NSRF, divided into two sections:

– During the construction of the section from the fork of Ionia Odos with Egnatia Odos to the fork of Kalpaki with a length of 46.4 km. This section will include six interchanges: Kosmira – Avestochori, Grammenohorion, Passaronos, Zitsa, Karion and Kalpaki.

– During the reconstruction of the Kalpaki – Kakavia section with a length of 23.11 km, the second section will be built with an option.

The Minister of Infrastructure Kostas Karamanlis also commented on the background of the project. “This is a landmark project that was planned and discussed before 2005,” he said. “This project has a national dimension, highlighting the region and linking it to the wider region of Western Macedonia and Epirus to the Western Balkans. This is a project that provides access to the Ionian Sea, a project that brings areas out of isolation.”

The construction horizon of the project is four years, and its operation will facilitate communication with Albania, as well as the security of the local network, which will be “freed” from the load of heavy vehicles. At the same time, it will “unload” the traffic around Ioannina, diverting the significant traffic currently served by the Ioannina ring road.