Huge road bill
The transport ministry will shortly have to announce its plan of how it plans to bring Polish roads to EU standards. The author of one of the plans that the ministry will have to consider is the road building authority GDDP. Janusz Fota, head of the GDDP, said that his plan aims to bring Polish roads to the standards indicated in EU directive no 96/53. In Poland only one percent of the roads meet this directive. Therefore the programme he is proposing includes 1,525km of motorways of which 632km will be built with state funds. Investments will be made in three phases over five year periods. According to the GDDP, PLN54.1bn is needed which the state hopes will come from private companies who will build and operate the motorways as well as funds from PHARE, ISPA and the EIB. In the first stage up to 2005, PLN15.1bn will be spent including the unbuilt section of the A4 linking Opole with Katowice (the then completed section will run from Legnice to Krakow) and completion of the A2 between Poznań and Nowy Tomysl which will then link the latter with Konin. The cost of the second phase is considered to be around PLN18.6bn and includes the construction of the A1 motorway from Gdańsk to Toruń and A2 from Warsaw to Stryków and improvements to the existing dual carriageway between Częstochowa and Piotrków Trybunalski. The third phase will cost PLN20.4bn and see Warsaw linked to Brest Litovsk in Belarus amongst other plans.