The General Directorate for National Roads and Highways (GDDKiA) promises to end all road projects on time and not to lose EU funds. GDDKiA denies the rumors that it is against public-private partnership projects. So far, the main obstacle for such projects was how to settle the payments trucks should do.
Today, GDDKiA conveys to private managers of parts of roads money raised in selling special passes allowing to use highways all over the country. The directorate alarms, however, that after new highways are launched, it will have too little money to pay to private companies.
New roads should be ready in 2009-10. Poland will have had an electronic system to collect the fees common for the whole EU. The passes will disappear then.
“Next year, 400km of highways will be built in the public-private partnership system. We are aware of the fact that we cannot realize such a gigantic plan, which is the biggest in Europe”, Zbigniew Kotlarek, GDDKiA head said.
GDDKiA lets private consortia into the parts of highways with forecast traffic big enough to guarantee a return on investment, including A1 Strykow-Pyrzowice, A2 Nowy Tomysl-Konin and A2 Strykow-Konotopa.