A1 motorway (Slovenia)

Motorway in Slovenia

The A1 motorway , also known as Slovenika, is long, connecting Šentilj (at the Austrian border) and Koper/Capodistria (on the shores of the Adriatic Sea). It connects several of the largest metropolitan areas of the country, including Maribor, Celje and Ljubljana, all the way to the Slovenian Littoral and port town of Koper. Construction began in 1970 and the first section was finished in 1972, connecting Vrhnika and Postojna. Everyday operation of this initial stretch started on 29 December 1972. The connection to Koper was finished on 23 November 2004. The second to last part, from Trojane to Blagovica, was opened on 12 August 2005. It was also the most expensive, having eight viaducts and two tunnels despite being only 11 km long. The final section, the eastern Maribor bypass, opened on 14 August 2009.

The A1 motorway provides connection of Slovenia and Austria (only other motorway with border crossing to Austria being A2 motorway) and was from the very start an important route, because it connected the three largest cities in Slovenia – Ljubljana, Maribor and Celje. On the other hand, it also connected all those cities with Slovenian coast and provided better conditions for transit to Port of Koper. As of 2013 it is also the only motorway that is connected to all the other motorways in Slovenia. As of 2013 motorway always has at least two traffic lanes in each direction and is rarely without emergency lane. On some parts it has three traffic lanes in one direction and two in another (usually the additional is for slow vehicles). Only Tunnel Golovec has three lanes in each direction. It was also planned that some other parts of highway will get additional lanes but most of plans were postponed due to lack of money.

When most parts of motorway were already done, there came two parts that were something special, meaning tunnels near Trojane with most notable being Tunnel Trojane with length of almost 3 kilometres and thus second longest tunnel in Slovenia (the longest being Karavanke Tunnel) and viaduct Črni Kal, the longest viaduct in Slovenia, being longer than 1 kilometer and also 95 metres high.