Residents of Borgarfjörður Eystri, a village in East Iceland, can now drive on paved roads all the way to Egilsstaðir.
The last section of paved road was completed earlier this month, a 15 km [9.3 mi] stretch near the town of Eiðar was finally paved.
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Héraðsverk, the contractor responsible for finishing the road project, reports that it was difficult going. The final section required significant blasting to clear the way. Now, however, a straight and wide road runs where there was previously a winding, gravel road with potholes.
The region has seen significant improvements in infrastructure in the last years, with a new road recently finished near Njarðvík. Residents also protested in 2018 by paving sections of road themselves to highlight inaction on behalf of the municipality.
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With the recent improvements, all towns in the Fljótsdalshérað municipality are now connected via paved roads, a major milestone for this remote region of Iceland.
Eyþór Stefánsson, a resident of Borgarfjörður Eystri and representative in Múlaþing’s local council, is quoted as saying: “It’s amazing what’s happened in such a short time. We set off to fight to get sections of landslide-prone roads paved, but then this all started to happen incredibly fast. We had hoped to improved the road from Eiðar but it turned out much better than we reckoned. They’ve taken away the blind rises, so now it’s a properly straight and wide road, practically a motorway.”
