Struma motorway

Struma motorway
Автомагистрала „Струма“
Struma motorway highlighted in red and yellow
Route information
Part of E79
Length:	86 km (53 mi) 156 km (97 mi) planned 36 km (22 mi) under construction
Major junctions
From:	Pernik,
To:	Kulata,
Location
Major cities:	Pernik, Dupnitsa, Blagoevgrad, Sandanski
Highway system
Motorways in Bulgaria

The Struma Motorway (Bulgarian: Автомагистрала „Струма“, Avtomagistrala "Struma") is a motorway currently under construction in Bulgaria. The motorway follows the route Pernik-Dupnitsa-Blagoevgrad-Sandanski-border to Greece. It is part of the Pan-European Corridor IV and also is part of Е79, that runs from Miskolc (Hungary) to Thessaloniki (Greece), via the Romanian cities of Deva and Craiova.

The Struma motorway extends the Lyulin motorway (A6), running from Sofia to Pernik. The total planned length of Struma motorway is 156 km. It ends at the border crossing to Greece, at the village of Kulata. About 86.7 km of the motorway are already built and are in service, from Pernik junction to Blagoevgrad and from Sandanski to the village Kulata, nearby the border of Greece.

The motorway is named after the Struma River.

The motorway was divided into 5 construction lots: lot 0 is Pernik-Dolna Dikanya, lot 1 is Dolna Dikanya-Dupnitsa, lot 2 is Dupnitsa–Blagoevgrad, lot 3 is Blagoevgrad–Sandanski and lot 4 is Sandanski–Kulata. The construction of lot 1 started in September 2011 and was completed in July 2013, while the construction of lot 4 started in April 2012 and was finalized in July-August 2015. A contract for the construction of lot 2 was signed in February 2013, and it was completed in October 2015.