A1 construction detour

Minister of Transport and Construction, Jerzy Polaczek, has said he would recommend that the Cabinet break negotiations with Gdańsk Transport Company (GTC), on the construction of a section of the A1 highway. The Minister came to the decision after he was presented with a report by the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways (GDDKiA), which shows that the cost of building the section could amount to some EUR 1 (zł.3.89) million lower per kilometer than proposed by GTC. The Ministry believes it will save up to EUR 130 (zł.506) million if the GDDKiA develops the section.

"No negotiations can be broken as we have not had any with this government. The Ministry does not talk," says a member of the supervisory board at GTC, Aleksander Kozłowski, who learned about Polaczek's idea from the internet. GTC has been building a 60-kilometer section of the A1 from Gdańsk to Nowe Marzy near Grudziądz since July 2005. The completion is scheduled for 2008. GTC also managed to initially agree with the former government on the conditions for constructing the next 62-kilometer section from Nowe Marzy to Toruń.

"An agreement was prepared and the former Minister of Infrastructure directed it further, to the Ministry of Finance. Then the government changed and now it turns out that GTC might end up out of the game," said Kozłowski.

GTC estimated that the second section would cost EUR 445-455 million (zł.1.73-1.77 billion) - which is EUR 5.5 (zł.21.4) million per kilometer, plus EUR 120-130 (zł.467-506) on bridges.

"The whole project was destined to fail from the very beginning. The weak traffic [on the completed part of section two] does not guarantee a return," says GDDKiA spokesman, Andrzej Maciejewski.