Online Encyclopedia
Roads and Expressways in Poland
Poland has a poorly developed infrastructure of roads and expressways by Western European standards. The total length of roads in Poland is 364,656 km. There are very few main expressways (autostrady, singular - autostrada), a few two-lane express roads with a median but no highway interchanges, and an extensive network of single-lane highways connecting all major cities. Currently three major expressways spanning the entire country are being planned or built, to be finished some time in the next decade, a level of development achieved in Western Europe decades ago.
Expressways
When built, Polish expressways will connect Poland's main industrial cities with one another. There are currently three major expressways in the books, with some sections already built while others are built or planned. An expressway is identified numerically, with the letter A preceding it (e.g. A4).
These expressways are:
- A1 (Gdansk-Lodz-Katowice-Czech border), not yet built except for one small section near Lodz. Planned completion after 2010.
- A2 (German border near Frankfurt an der Oder-Poznan-Warsaw- Belarus border) - the western two-thirds between the border and Warsaw are to be finished by 2007. The eastern section will be built later.
- A3 was to run from Szczecin south to the Czech border, but plans to build it have for now been shelved. A lower standard express road designated S3 will now be built along this route.
- A4 (German border near Zgorzelec-Wroclaw-Katowice-Krakow-Ukraine border) - mostly complete from German border to Krakow, with some gaps in Silesia and near the German border. Full completion of this stretch expected before 2007. The eastern section will be built later.
There also exist two short expressways A6 and A18:
- A6 - from Polish-German border crossing Kołbaskowo -Pomellen to Szczecin.
- A18 - from Polish-German border crossing Olszyna -Forst to the junction with A4 near Bolesławiec
Most of the current expansion projects are funded with European Union aid.
Highways
Poland also has many two-lane and a few four-lane highways which connect all areas of the country not serviced by the main expressways. These are supplemented by a network of generally poorly maintained side roads and local paved routes.
City Freeways
With the exception of Warsaw, Szczecin and the Tricity area, most of Poland's cities do not have a well developed freeway system within. As cities begin, most highways and expressways end and turn into regular surface streets. This is largely due to the density of city construction and importance of existing city transit systems: The destruction of either in order to construct an inner-city freeway network is viewed as unbeneficial.