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He's fed up and so are lots of people rallied behind him, because the problem is that bad. The Romanian road network is deficient and overburdened. Aside from c

He's fed up and so are lots of people rallied behind him, because the problem is that bad. The Romanian road network is deficient and overburdened. Aside from commuters stuck in traffic, there's also lots of trucks. Most roads are undivided and overtaking is allowed. Safety culture among drivers is poor, deaths are high [1]. Sadly, road fatality rates in non-EU countries in the same region are even higher. The EU is a critical source of funding for major infrastructure projects, especially for newer members who also have access to convergence funds. Road projects are expensive not only because of costs in design, land acquisition, and construction materials, but because they require large amounts of labor over several years. While it's often the same multinational consortia who bid on and win such construction projects, these firms aren't set up to do everything by themselves, and partner with local subcontractors for much of the work. The way work gets subcontracted makes this process vulnerable to corruption and graft. But sometimes it's the big consortia that get themselves into a problematic situation: just read up on Bechtel and Viaduct at Suplacu de Barcău. EU transport and convergence funds might be a big help, but they do come with a few strings attached: they have to be used for projects that can be justified though a regional or EU-wide lens. On top of the slow pace of progress on the matter, Moldavia has an unfortunate geographic situation that puts it far away from the most important transit corridors -- the TEN-T corridors -- that EU desires to prioritize. In Romania's case, this means that connections towards Hungary and Bulgaria have so far made more progress than connections towards Ukraine and Moldova. [1] https://www.euronews.com/2018/12/07/which-countries-in-europe-have-the-deadliest-roads https://www.euronews.com/2018/12/07/which-countries-in-europ...

madaxe_again 8y ago
Moldova was an eye-opener (in 2012) - crossed the border from Romania at Giurgiulești, and almost immediately found myself driving down a cobbled road with gas street lights, and horse-carts. They make Romania look extremely wealthy. It’s understandable that the EU is prioritising corridor connections between member states and wealthy trading partners. I am sure Moldova will not be forgotten, but as long as they still have the last vestige of the USSR within their borders (Transnistria), it’ll be hard to extend them membership or the benefits of new infrastructure. Furthermore, extending east from Moldova into Ukraine is also challenging, as there is an awkward area of disputed territory around the border with frequent checkpoints, diversions, and razor wire fences. Oh, actually, that was seemingly resolved after my visit - but Transnistria remains.
- bbrian 8y ago
  Wow, I'd never heard of Transnistria. Fascinating. Transnistria: A land in limbo: CNN: 3m 22s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAReDKkT9TA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAReDKkT9TA Transnistrian Independence Day 2017: A travel blogger who doesn't over-do it with commentary: 3m 9s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q28ZONQIHK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q28ZONQIHK0 It has its own "borders, police, military and currency"!: Another travel blogger, well narrated and short: 8m 15s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m-9Q5CkEvE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m-9Q5CkEvE
  - madaxe_again 8y ago
    Yeah, it's an odd old place - it really is still a Soviet state - with secret police to match. We had a shadow in Tiraspol, shook them because we could, as taking them on a wild goose chase is almost sport, and... then found it rather hard to get out of the country, as a result - a sizeable bribe had to change hands. Still, it's worth visiting, for a day or two, once.
    - stevenjohns 8y ago
      I’ll bite. There’s more to this story. Can you share it?
      - v_lisivka 8y ago
        Yet another land grab of Russian Federation.
        thefringthing 8y ago
        "Grab" only in the sense of "not leaving" when it would have been appropriate to do so.
        v_lisivka 8y ago
        "Grab" in sense "use Russian army to kill natives to grab their land."
rdtsc 8y ago
> Road projects are expensive not only because of costs in design, land acquisition, and construction materials, but because they require large amounts of labor over several years. And most of all, corruption. I was talking to someone involved in a construction project (from donated / borrowed EU funds). EU eventually had to send someone to supervise because workers would sneak in it back at night and steal materials. Some were very creative as they might steal cement but replace it with something cheaper. Basically it is really an uphill battle. Just handing over a bunch of money to countries with a lot of corruption, doesn't work at all
- peteretep 8y ago
  > Just handing over a bunch of money to countries with a lot of corruption, doesn't work at all This is hardly a new problem. Literally any first world aid programme has this exact issue, whether it be USAID, AUSAID, DFID. Maybe there's just reluctance to treat EU partners the same way they treat South American and South East Asian partners?
  - close04 8y ago
    It doesn't get much better in countries with lower corruption. The difference is that in less corrupt countries after the stealing is done the project delivers something close to expectations. In more corrupt countries after the stealing is done there's not much left for delivering anything.
  - rdtsc 8y ago
    > Maybe there's just reluctance to treat EU partners the same way they treat South American and South East Asian partners? I think that was the case. It was embarrassing for the local officials to have to admit to the corruption. They know it is there and they are usually the ones involved in it, it's just that brining it to light and making it obvious is "embarrassing".
- gumby 8y ago
  This was a problem with the "Big Dig" project in Boston as well. A truck would drive in with cement, get checked in, then drive right out again, either to someone else's project or in order to return and be checked in again.
dmix 8y ago
> While it's often the same multinational consortia who bid on and win Maybe identifying why the same companies keep getting these contracts and under-delivering and/or merely uses subcontractors. Then attempt to fix that system as a first step before throwing more money at the problem? Possibly by introducing more competition by making the bidding process easier, hiring multiple companies by breaking down the projects into smaller pieces, having strings tied to contracts based on performance, bonuses and other financial rewards to incentivize reaching goals under budget, include funding for an oversight team to monitor paper trails and check who gets paid + their connections to government, demand public transparency reports, etc.
- cbg0 8y ago
  There aren't a huge number of companies that actually build highways, and generally in order to bid you need to meet certain criteria, the problem is the "quality" part of the criteria isn't very strictly monitored. Projects are already broken down into smaller pieces and there are penalties if you don't meet deadlines and/or some quality aspects. There's definitely a lot to improve but in a country where you find corruption at every level it's very difficult to improve upon the situation, since many politicians have a direct interest in keeping things the way they are, as they get to pocket some cash either via bribes or sending some work to their friends' companies when work needs to be subcontracted and getting a slice of that pie later. Some of the politicians that got busted ended up revealing systems where you would pay, as standard, 10% or more of the contract's value if your company got the job, so we really need to focus on solving this corruption thing and then we can work on the quality aspect as well.
xenospn 8y ago
You can witness this firsthand when driving through Slovenia and Croatia. They have a highway network that surpasses North America in quality, which is above and beyond what these countries could afford on their own.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
igravious 8y ago
EU regional and convergence funds really helped in the case of Ireland. Yes, there are claims that the money was misspent at times, and Dublin benefited the most (as ever), but a whole bunch of motorways were built from Dublin to the main towns in the country: Belfast, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford, plus a Dublin orbital. Problem is, Ireland converged and the money dried up! Now we got to fund major infrastructure projects ourselves and we haven't really done that since the Victorian era when we were part of the British empire! (I kid you not.) There was this joke back in the day, what's the easiest way to make loads of money? Lie down and pretend you're a road. Dumb joke but it wasn't wrong, billions were spent.
pbalau 8y ago
Look at this, for the non Romanians, Romania is the fish looking country in the SE quadrant of the map: https://i.redd.it/5wyzzv7kbfb01.jpg https://i.redd.it/5wyzzv7kbfb01.jpg Some years ago, before I left, using the Transilvania Highway to get anywhere, it took longer to get to the highway than it took to drive the entire length of the highway.
- ido 8y ago
  Before moving to Europe in 2005, my impression of former-communist countries was that they were all poor/backwards: this was the only context you would have ever hear about them growing up in Israel in the late 80s/90s. Furthermore the majority of my extended family left the Soviet Union in the 90s but my grandparents came over long before that (fraternal in the 1930s and maternal in the 40s right after WW2). Neither the old nor new arrivals ever talked about their former homelands in a positive way. To my surprise many former communist countries/cities neighbouring Austria & Germany (I lived in the former for 8 years and in the latter for 5) actually seemed more or less the same as their western counterparts, or least the parts of them that I visited (Prague, Brno, Cracow, to a lesser extent Budapest, Ljubljana & Bratislava). I therefor assumed the supposed backwardness was mostly just propaganda. But reading the above makes me think that the closer approximation to the truth is that even European (i.e. not central-asian former soviet republics) former-communist countries vary a lot & can't be that simply pigeon-holed.
  - Tsubasachan 8y ago
    Some countries in Eastern Europe are relative success stories. Slovenia, Croatia, Poland to name some. Others are sliding into back into dictatorship and economic failure.
    - ido 8y ago
      Yep. I think it seems highly correlated to geography: the closest they are to "old EU" states in central/Western Europe the more successful they seem to be. See Slovenia & Czech Rep vs Bulgaria.

madaxe_again 8y ago

Moldova was an eye-opener (in 2012) - crossed the border from Romania at Giurgiulești, and almost immediately found myself driving down a cobbled road with gas street lights, and horse-carts. They make Romania look extremely wealthy. It’s understandable that the EU is prioritising corridor connections between member states and wealthy trading partners. I am sure Moldova will not be forgotten, but as long as they still have the last vestige of the USSR within their borders (Transnistria), it’ll be hard to extend them membership or the benefits of new infrastructure. Furthermore, extending east from Moldova into Ukraine is also challenging, as there is an awkward area of disputed territory around the border with frequent checkpoints, diversions, and razor wire fences. Oh, actually, that was seemingly resolved after my visit - but Transnistria remains.

bbrian 8y ago
Wow, I'd never heard of Transnistria. Fascinating. Transnistria: A land in limbo: CNN: 3m 22s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAReDKkT9TA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAReDKkT9TA Transnistrian Independence Day 2017: A travel blogger who doesn't over-do it with commentary: 3m 9s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q28ZONQIHK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q28ZONQIHK0 It has its own "borders, police, military and currency"!: Another travel blogger, well narrated and short: 8m 15s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m-9Q5CkEvE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m-9Q5CkEvE
- madaxe_again 8y ago
  Yeah, it's an odd old place - it really is still a Soviet state - with secret police to match. We had a shadow in Tiraspol, shook them because we could, as taking them on a wild goose chase is almost sport, and... then found it rather hard to get out of the country, as a result - a sizeable bribe had to change hands. Still, it's worth visiting, for a day or two, once.
  - stevenjohns 8y ago
    I’ll bite. There’s more to this story. Can you share it?
    - v_lisivka 8y ago
      Yet another land grab of Russian Federation.
      - thefringthing 8y ago
        "Grab" only in the sense of "not leaving" when it would have been appropriate to do so.
        v_lisivka 8y ago
        "Grab" in sense "use Russian army to kill natives to grab their land."

rdtsc 8y ago

> Road projects are expensive not only because of costs in design, land acquisition, and construction materials, but because they require large amounts of labor over several years. And most of all, corruption. I was talking to someone involved in a construction project (from donated / borrowed EU funds). EU eventually had to send someone to supervise because workers would sneak in it back at night and steal materials. Some were very creative as they might steal cement but replace it with something cheaper. Basically it is really an uphill battle. Just handing over a bunch of money to countries with a lot of corruption, doesn't work at all

peteretep 8y ago
> Just handing over a bunch of money to countries with a lot of corruption, doesn't work at all This is hardly a new problem. Literally any first world aid programme has this exact issue, whether it be USAID, AUSAID, DFID. Maybe there's just reluctance to treat EU partners the same way they treat South American and South East Asian partners?
- close04 8y ago
  It doesn't get much better in countries with lower corruption. The difference is that in less corrupt countries after the stealing is done the project delivers something close to expectations. In more corrupt countries after the stealing is done there's not much left for delivering anything.
- rdtsc 8y ago
  > Maybe there's just reluctance to treat EU partners the same way they treat South American and South East Asian partners? I think that was the case. It was embarrassing for the local officials to have to admit to the corruption. They know it is there and they are usually the ones involved in it, it's just that brining it to light and making it obvious is "embarrassing".
gumby 8y ago
This was a problem with the "Big Dig" project in Boston as well. A truck would drive in with cement, get checked in, then drive right out again, either to someone else's project or in order to return and be checked in again.

dmix 8y ago

> While it's often the same multinational consortia who bid on and win Maybe identifying why the same companies keep getting these contracts and under-delivering and/or merely uses subcontractors. Then attempt to fix that system as a first step before throwing more money at the problem? Possibly by introducing more competition by making the bidding process easier, hiring multiple companies by breaking down the projects into smaller pieces, having strings tied to contracts based on performance, bonuses and other financial rewards to incentivize reaching goals under budget, include funding for an oversight team to monitor paper trails and check who gets paid + their connections to government, demand public transparency reports, etc.

cbg0 8y ago
There aren't a huge number of companies that actually build highways, and generally in order to bid you need to meet certain criteria, the problem is the "quality" part of the criteria isn't very strictly monitored. Projects are already broken down into smaller pieces and there are penalties if you don't meet deadlines and/or some quality aspects. There's definitely a lot to improve but in a country where you find corruption at every level it's very difficult to improve upon the situation, since many politicians have a direct interest in keeping things the way they are, as they get to pocket some cash either via bribes or sending some work to their friends' companies when work needs to be subcontracted and getting a slice of that pie later. Some of the politicians that got busted ended up revealing systems where you would pay, as standard, 10% or more of the contract's value if your company got the job, so we really need to focus on solving this corruption thing and then we can work on the quality aspect as well.

xenospn 8y ago

You can witness this firsthand when driving through Slovenia and Croatia. They have a highway network that surpasses North America in quality, which is above and beyond what these countries could afford on their own.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

igravious 8y ago

EU regional and convergence funds really helped in the case of Ireland. Yes, there are claims that the money was misspent at times, and Dublin benefited the most (as ever), but a whole bunch of motorways were built from Dublin to the main towns in the country: Belfast, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford, plus a Dublin orbital. Problem is, Ireland converged and the money dried up! Now we got to fund major infrastructure projects ourselves and we haven't really done that since the Victorian era when we were part of the British empire! (I kid you not.) There was this joke back in the day, what's the easiest way to make loads of money? Lie down and pretend you're a road. Dumb joke but it wasn't wrong, billions were spent.

pbalau 8y ago

Look at this, for the non Romanians, Romania is the fish looking country in the SE quadrant of the map: https://i.redd.it/5wyzzv7kbfb01.jpg https://i.redd.it/5wyzzv7kbfb01.jpg Some years ago, before I left, using the Transilvania Highway to get anywhere, it took longer to get to the highway than it took to drive the entire length of the highway.

ido 8y ago
Before moving to Europe in 2005, my impression of former-communist countries was that they were all poor/backwards: this was the only context you would have ever hear about them growing up in Israel in the late 80s/90s. Furthermore the majority of my extended family left the Soviet Union in the 90s but my grandparents came over long before that (fraternal in the 1930s and maternal in the 40s right after WW2). Neither the old nor new arrivals ever talked about their former homelands in a positive way. To my surprise many former communist countries/cities neighbouring Austria & Germany (I lived in the former for 8 years and in the latter for 5) actually seemed more or less the same as their western counterparts, or least the parts of them that I visited (Prague, Brno, Cracow, to a lesser extent Budapest, Ljubljana & Bratislava). I therefor assumed the supposed backwardness was mostly just propaganda. But reading the above makes me think that the closer approximation to the truth is that even European (i.e. not central-asian former soviet republics) former-communist countries vary a lot & can't be that simply pigeon-holed.
- Tsubasachan 8y ago
  Some countries in Eastern Europe are relative success stories. Slovenia, Croatia, Poland to name some. Others are sliding into back into dictatorship and economic failure.
  - ido 8y ago
    Yep. I think it seems highly correlated to geography: the closest they are to "old EU" states in central/Western Europe the more successful they seem to be. See Slovenia & Czech Rep vs Bulgaria.