A section of the A1 motorway in Poland’s Silesia region is under construction between the city of Częstochowa and the village of Pyrzowice, close to Katowice international airport. The new stretch of road, a dual carriageway with two lanes running in each direction, is approximately 58 km in length.
- 28 August 2017
Work under the project includes the construction of five junctions: at Rząsawa, Lgota, Blachownia, Zawodzie and Woźniki. All necessary technical infrastructure, as well as service areas, engineering structures and traffic safety facilities, are also to be put in place.
The motorway is to be built in such a way as to be able to accommodate projected traffic levels in the coming years. In addition, land has been set aside to make it possible to add a further lane in each direction in the future if required.
A key component of the Trans-European Transport Network
The entire section of road covered by the project is located within the Baltic-Adriatic corridor of the core Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). Almost EUR 608 million has been invested in the work, with EU funding accounting for more than EUR 315 million of this amount.
Commonly known as the Amber Motorway, the A1 is a north-south motorway which runs through central Poland. When completed it is planned to be 568 km long and to run the whole length of the country, from Gdańsk on the Baltic Sea, via Poland’s third-largest city – Łódź – and one of its main industrial regions, in Upper Silesia, to the border with the Czech Republic at Gorzyczki. There, it connects with the Czech D1 motorway.
The project will eliminate bottlenecks and strengthen connections within the TEN-T road network. This will help to ensure faster and more efficient north-south transport links for regional traffic, as well as for international traffic, in particular that travelling via the link with the D1 at the Polish-Czech border.
A quicker route around Częstochowa
A specific benefit of the new section of the A1 is that it will make it easier for long-distance traffic to bypass Częstochowa – home to about 250 000 people, as well as the Jasna Góra monastery and its Black Madonna painting, which is visited by thousands of pilgrims from all over the world every year. It will also have a positive effect on the environment by diverting heavy traffic away from city centres and adjacent roads, as well as increasing accessibility within the region and thereby strengthening the competitiveness of local businesses.
The Amber Motorway is part of European route E75, which starts at Vardø in the far north of Norway and runs south as far as Sitia, at the eastern end of the Greek island of Crete. Given that it connects Poland's major sea ports on the Baltic with the centre and south of the country, the motorway is of considerable economic importance. As of December 2016, about 442 km of it were open, with completion expected in 2019.
Total investment and EU funding
Total investment for the project “Construction of A1 motorway, section Pyrzowice – Częstochowa” is EUR 607 863 190, with the EU’s Cohesion Fund contributing EUR 315 239 848 through the “Infrastructure and Environment” Operational Programme for the 2014-2020 programming period.