A new section of Poland’s S17 express road between the town of Garwolin and the village of Kurów, and running through the Mazowieckie and Lubelskie regions, is being built with EU funding. A section of the S12 express road connecting the S17 with the city of Puławy and an important river bridge over the Vistula is also under construction as part of the project.
New sections of Poland’s S17 and S12 express roads under construction
- 09 May 2018
The work entails the construction of a total of 70.5 km of express road, of which the S17 accounts for 58.5 km and the S12 for about 12 km. The roads will replace sections of existing national roads linking Garwolin, Kurów and Puławy.
Both sections have been designed in such a way as to enable them to handle projected increases in traffic volumes in the coming years. They are dual carriageways, with two lanes running in each direction either side of a central reservation. The central reservation on the S17 is 12 m wide, while that on the S12 is 5 m in width.
An important link between major cities
The section of the S17 is located on the main road transport corridor connecting Poland’s capital, Warsaw with Lublin, the country’s ninth-largest city and capital of the Lubelskie region. It also forms part of the core Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), while the section of the S12 comes under the comprehensive part of the TEN-T Network.
When it is completed, the S17 will be around 310 km long, beginning at the junction with the S8 express road to the north east of Warsaw and running, via Lublin and the UNESCO World Heritage-listed city of Zamość, as far as the Polish-Ukrainian border at the village of Hrebenne. It lies on the 367 km-long European route E372, which begins in Warsaw and ends in Lviv, Ukraine’s seventh-largest city.
The S12 has a planned length of 315 km, from the junction with the A1 motorway, close to the city of Piotrków Trybunalski in the Łódzkie region of central Poland, to the border crossing with Ukraine at the village of Dorohusk. As well as Lublin, it passes by the cities of Radom and Chełm, and from Lublin onwards forms a section of European route E373, which runs the 590 km from Lublin to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.
Fast, safe and efficient connections
A total of close to EUR 530 million is being spent on the construction of the two sections of road, which are scheduled to enter into operation in 2019. Of this, approximately EUR 273.5 million is being supplied through the EU’s Cohesion Fund.
Thanks to the investment, traffic conditions and safety in the area will be improved and fast and efficient road connections established both nationally and internationally, in particular in terms of links with Ukraine. This will support economic development in the region and Poland as a whole, and ease mobility between the Mazowieckie and Lubelskie regions for both passengers and freight. By helping to prevent congestion, the development will also bring benefits for the environment and local residents’ quality of life.
Total investment and EU funding
Total investment for the project “Construction of the S17 express road, section Garwolin – Kurów” is EUR 529 721 579, with the EU’s Cohesion Fund contributing EUR 273 510 962 through the “Infrastructure and Environment” Operational Programme for the 2014-2020 programming period.