Warsaw highway plans curtailed until 2015 due to shortage of funding

The Highway Construction and Operation Agency (ABiEA) has presented revised plans for Poland's highway network, under which the A2 and A4 highways will be shorter than originally planned, while the A3 highway will not be built at all. The highway program envisages building more than 1572 kilometers of highways by the year 2015, at a total estimated cost of Euro 10 billion. At least 70% of this sum will be financed by the government, which hopes to rely extensively on foreign aid. Under the new plan, the A2 highway, starting at the Western border, will no longer pass through or next to Warsaw and then continue to the Eastern border, but will end in Brwinow, just outside the capital. "According to my knowledge, there will be no highway in the greater Warsaw area before the year 2015," said Andrzej Urbanik, president of ABiEA. He also said that earlier plans for Poland's highway network to comprise 2300 kilometers of highways by the year 2015 had turned out to be unrealistic, primarily due to a shortage of funds. (Rzeczpospolita, July 14-15, p.B2) T.J.