40 km queue towards Greece: huge traffic jams on Struma Motorway and congested highways

Serious traffic and kilometer-long queues marked the movement along the country's main road arteries in the direction of Greece. On the Struma Motorway, a queue about 40 km long formed during peak hours, with the column of cars on the way to the border literally "crawling" at times. The situation on the key motorways was monitored in real-time by toll system cameras.

According to data from the system, the busiest section turned out to be the Struma Motorway between Blagoevgrad and Kresna, where over 2,000 vehicles passed in just 60 minutes, compared to a normal capacity of about 700 vehicles per hour. The huge flow of cars led to serious traffic jams, frustrated drivers, and numerous attempts to change routes at the last minute.

The jams started from the traffic light in the town of Kresna and stretched to the Simitli junction. Some travelers could not stand the wait and made a U-turn back toward Sofia and Blagoevgrad, giving up on their trip or looking for alternative routes.

The load on roads to Greece reached over 2,000 motor vehicles per hour even before noon. The traffic, three times higher than usual in the section between Blagoevgrad and Kresna, forced the Road Infrastructure Agency to temporarily close part of the Struma Motorway and redirect traffic along alternative routes.

However, the measures did not bring the expected effect. Ognyan Filipov, who was also caught in the traffic jam, described the situation as follows: "It's a unique jam for both Gotse Delchev and Kulata, it's the same. The police officer who just came from above said to go through Gotse Delchev, but where the truth lies – I don't know."

The traffic graph from the toll management was almost entirely red throughout the day. Besides the Struma, in some places, the flow of motor vehicles reached over 3,300 per hour. The other two main motorways – Hemus and Trakia – also proved particularly busy.

On the Hemus Motorway, in the area of Dolni and Gorni Bogrov, cameras recorded over 3,000 passing vehicles in just one hour at noon. On the Trakia Motorway, the most serious congestion was around the village of Lozen, as well as in the sections near Pazardzhik and Plovdiv, where the systems were also operating at peak loads.

The situation shows once again that with the first strong tourist flow towards Greece and internal destinations, traffic along the main corridors in our country quickly reaches critical values, and any obstacle on the route leads to a shock accumulation of cars. Road authorities urge drivers to plan their trips well in advance, monitor real-time traffic information, and use alternative routes whenever possible.