Summary. A summary of the expert article from the society's 35th anniversary volume. The full article is available to download below.
The Third Development Axis is a structural infrastructure project intended to link secondary centres to international transport corridors. The axis runs from Austrian Carinthia through Slovenj Gradec, Velenje, Celje and Novo mesto towards Croatia. Its northern arm was meant to connect the Koroška and Savinjsko-Šaleška regions to the motorway cross via a modern expressway.
The northern part was spatially planned in four sections based on a 2007 variant study, with the route junctioning onto the A1 motorway at Šentrupert selected as the most suitable. The planning was marked by lengthy complications, as individual municipalities objected, and the 2016 amendment to the resolution downgraded the Slovenj Gradec to Dravograd section from an expressway to a reconstruction of the main road.
In 2014 the Youth Initiative for the Third Development Axis was founded, which collected nearly 7,400 petition signatures and prepared the study HOČ'MO CESTO!. After protests, a protocol was signed in 2017 foreseeing a four-lane expressway between Šentrupert and Slovenj Gradec and tasking DARS with implementation, with construction beginning in 2019.
