PHOTO The Union Passage, renovated four years ago and decorated with flowers and butterflies, has rusted / The works cost 12 million euros
The Union Passage entered the construction site in the summer of 2022 for safety works. Currently, the metal panels are almost completely rusted, but neither the city hall nor the builder answered HotNews' questions about possible repairs.
The works on Pasaj Unirii almost four years ago cost 12 million euros. The investment sparked controversy at the time, primarily because of the very high price, but also because the passage was not reinforced.
Mayor Daniel Băluță reasoned then that he resorted to this solution to prevent pieces of the passage from falling on cars.
Contacted by HotNews regarding the current state of the metal panels, the representatives of the District 4 City Hall did not respond to the editorial requests.
What the Sector 4 City Hall said in 2022
Work to make the passage safe began on 19 June 2022, lasted two and a half months and cost €12 million. The safety work was carried out by the company Bog Art. HotNews also asked the builder for a point of view, but we did not receive a response.
According to the data communicated at the time by the City Hall of Sector 4, the safety measures included the following works: the isolation of infiltrations from the roadway, the safety of the walls, the architectural parts that could fall were removed, the cracks in the walls were filled with special mortars, the walls were covered with approximately 3000 metal panels, the building networks were replaced, a new video surveillance system was installed and a high-performance ventilation system was installed, specially designed for the ventilation of road tunnels, composed of 60 fans, which have two functions – they are activated when the nox level becomes high and, in case of fire, they are activated to remove the smoke from the tunnel, the asphalt layer was restored.
Chain of accidents after completion of safety work
After the safety work of the passage was completed and traffic was opened, several accidents occurred in the passage, mainly caused by the fact that cars with a height of more than 3.5 m did not respect the ban on entering the passage.
The worst accident occurred on December 23, 2022, when one person died and 21 others were injured after a coach carrying nearly 50 Greek tourists crashed into the height limiter at the Union Passage.
The information was circulated in the public space that, through the safety works, the City Hall of Sector 4 cut off the height of the passage, but the representatives of the institution denied this.
Built in 1986-1987, with a length of approximately 800 meters and a width of 14 meters, Pasajul Unirii was expertized by the Capital City Hall in 2017, and the expertise concluded that its technical condition is “unsatisfactory” and is in an advanced state of decay.
