Gov't highway plan panned by critics

The Infrastructure Ministry said last week it wants to start building a new motorway as early as next year to step up the construction of the country's roads. But the move has been criticized by other parties involved in the scheme who said the project would not happen earlier than 2004.

Mieczysław Muszyński, the newly appointed deputy minister of infrastructure, last week told a news conference that the construction of Poland's motorways will be accelerated under the new administration.

Besides existing work on the A-4 motorway in the south and on the A-2 section between Nowy Tomyśl (west of Poznań) and Konin (central Poland), the government wants to start building the next stretch from Konin to Stryków (near Łódź).

The Konin-Stryków highway will extend the A-2 highway 107 kilometers closer to Warsaw and is a further step toward the long awaited completion of Poland's four-motorway system that will be upgraded to European Union (EU)-standards.

But Paweł Posadzy, spokesman for the Autostrada Wielkopolska (AW) consortium, which is building the 149-kilometer-long Nowy Tomyśl-Konin stretch, said a minimum of 2.5 years will have to pass before the construction of the new section can be started.

"The tender procedure to choose the company (which will build the motorway) will take at least 18 months," Posadzy said. "Then, it will be another year until the actual works can start. Our experiences so far suggest that it will take rather longer than 2.5 years."

Agata Berdys, spokeswoman for the Motorway Construction and Operation Agency, which implements the government's motorway construction plans, said the schedule for motorway construction envisages groundbreaking on the Konin-Stryków stretch in 2004.

"No concession has been issued for this stretch yet," Berdys said. "The construction itself is the shortest period of time, while it is the preparations that take the longest."

She quoted the example of the concession that was issued to AW for the Nowy Tomyśl-Konin stretch. "The concession was issued in 1997, but the work began last summer," she said.

Tadeusz Wilk, transport department director at the International Road Carriers Association, which represents 4,300 road operators in Poland, agreed that the project would be almost impossible to implement as early as next year. "It will be organizationally extremely difficult to start next year," Wilk said. "An enormous amount of funds and resources would have to be first raised for this venture."

However, the ministry wants to push with its plan to start the development next year, the ministry's press department told the Business Journal. The decisions on the tender concession are to be taken within the next two weeks, according to the department.

The stretch is to be built in a system of private-public-partnership, with the government and private investors sharing the costs and risks of the venture.

Robert Wylot