In 2009 Poland has only about 900 km of motorways, 550 km of expressways and 1200 km of dual carriageways. Rest of the network counting over 18000 km is single carriageways. This has a great impact on the number of deaths on polish roads. Mainly due to the poor infrastructure, Poland has one of the biggest rates of deaths on roads in Europe. Almost 90% of deaths in our country happen on single carriageways with 2 lanes. What else is worth mentioning is that in most European countries the death rates decrease within years whereas in Poland the rate remains relatively constant.
/Death rates in chosen European countries/Poland's roads are in general of a very poor quality, are badly designed and maintained. Drivers should be aware of huge potholes in the roads (especially after the winter) or uneven surface made by wheels of heavy trucks. Modern roads are often poorly designed and the finish is of a poor standard. This leads to a situation when after few years the surface has to be repaired or even replaced. A good example is expressway S8 (the part from Radzymin to Wyszków), which was put into operation in December 2008. It is already known that the asphalt layer is too thin and it will have to be replaced soon.
However in recent years, the situation has improved a bit. Due to the inflow of European Union funds for infrastructure projects and organization of Euro 2012 the government started spending more money on road construction. The plan is to build additional 3000 km of motorways and expressways before Euro 2012. Will they manage to? Will the roads have decent quality? Let’s hope so.
/Motorway infrastructure in February 2008 and planned for June 2012/
/Expressway infrastructure in February 2008 and planned for June 2012/The second main problem with polish roads is that cities lack of beltways. This forces all the transit traffic to go through city centers and causes (especially in the rush hours) huge traffic jams. Roads in cities are often very difficult to navigate and are not designed for the number of cars in them. The small amount of city entry/exit roads, leads to huge traffic jams in the morning and afternoon rush hours. All this leads to a situation in which you can travel the distance between Janki and Marki (30 km, south-west and north-east Warsaw entries) in approximately the same time as form Marki to Białystok (200 km).
Questions
What do you think about the condition of roads in our country? Is it really as dramatic as everyone says?
Do you agree that the lack of motorways and express roads is the main factor of such high death rate on our roads?
What sort of punishment would you suggest for companies that build poor quality roads?
Do you agree that the additional money from European Union and the organization of Euro 2012 has speed up road building?
Will the government plan of building additional 3000 km of motorways and express roads till 2012 succeed?
Assuming that city beltways will be eventually built, what temporary solution for decreasing traffic in cities would you suggest?
Hello,
ReplyDelete"What do you think about the condition of roads in our country? Is it really as dramatic as everyone says?"
Yes, yes and.. yes. Not all roads are bad, but some of them don't need to be "great". The rest, where are a lot of cars need to be replaced by expressway, motorway, or simply better asphalt, like road from Ostrow Mazowiecka to my town Łomża.
"Do you agree that the lack of motorways and express roads is the main factor of such high death rate on our roads?"
yyy... yes ;)
"What sort of punishment would you suggest for companies that build poor quality roads?"
Well, we could kidnap the presidents of this companies and demand for new motorways ;]
"Will the government plan of building additional 3000 km of motorways and express roads till 2012 succeed?"
Lets say: haahahahaha!
I take that road from Ostrów Mazowiecka to Łomża every year when I go to mazury. I love it... it maybe a "little" bumpy, but it's always empty :)
ReplyDelete"What do you think about the condition of roads in our country? Is it really as dramatic as everyone says?"
ReplyDeleteWhen I look on death rates diagram I think that Poland is around seven years behind Europe. The condition of roads is really bad especially after the winter.
"Do you agree that the lack of motorways and express roads is the main factor of such high death rate on our roads?"
Lack of motorways and express roads has big impact on such high death rate. But don't forget that roads aren't only reason for this situation. In many cases the reason is bad technical state of cars and irresponsible drivers or pedestrians.
"What sort of punishment would you suggest for companies that build poor quality roads?"
Maybe companies should give guarantee for the roads and paid the whole costs of repairs. So building the low quality roads wouldn't be remunerative.
I think that condition of polish roads is improving slightly, however it is far from other European countries like France, Germany, Italy and many other. High death rate is mainly caused by lack of driving skills of polish drivers and their recklessness. This and the condition of our roads and few other factors of less importance combined account for so high death rate.
ReplyDelete"What sor of punishment would you suggest for companies that build poor quality roads?"
I am not an expert in this area, but I think that in many cases the problem is not the quality of roads but plans that do not include some important facts like that in near future the pipes laying undearneath will need remplacing and they whole road needs to be destroyed and built once again.
Well, in my opinion Polish road infrastructure is very far behind modern standards, major cities are still connected with single lane roads which in my opinion make Poland lag behind modern countries by about 60 years.
ReplyDeleteDeaths are cause by many factors, for sure highways would limit accidents a lot but culture of driving is also very important.
I’m very skeptical about current infrastructure projects connected with Euro 2012, in my opinion it will be a big failure because our law system is making too many difficulties and it’s rather matter of complicated laws not money.
Regarding traffic in cities in my opinion best thing the local government can do unless beltways are be built (which I doubt) is not to interfere, in my neighborhood there is always very intensive traffic in the morning on Modlinska street in Warsaw, only thing the local government has done is to limit car traffic from 3 lanes to 2 and create a Bus lane which not only increased traffic as whole but also for busses since they are still stuck in traffic on the bridge where bus lane ends…
I do believe that lack of highways in Poland is the major cause of death accidents on roads. People are usually very tired when drive 300 km because of poor quality of roads. Apart from that there are drivers who behave as if they were on highways. I mean they drive very fast andcarelessly. In fact, very little is needed to cause a very serious accident. People can't take over, either they do it to slowly or to fast. Our roads are really of bad in comparison with Austria Germany Italy... In those countries you can do 1000 km in 9 hours and even don't feel it. Maybe one wonderful day we will have good long stable roads :)
ReplyDeleteAccording to me the condition of polish roads is horrible, dramatic, etc. It is not something unusual to find a hole in a centre of road. I would say that finding a road in a good condition surprising and in many direction impossible.
ReplyDeleteI hope, that finals of football in 2012 will accelerate building of new roads..
Very good job. I agree with ale statements in Your post Kuba. I recount my 'road adventure' in warsaw... I have crashed my car... but the most funny is a fact that I've done it wihout other cars or peoples. I have driven and to work by Trasa Łazienkowska and suddenly I have punched in a big gob of metal which have lied on the road. Trasa Łazienkowska is one of the fastest roads in the City and this is unacceptable that We can find dangerous object for drivers on the road. In one word - disaster !!!
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteFirst thing i cannot agree with your chart about statistic number of death on polish roads per 1mln citizens. Why? Why author have chosen under consideration only 2001 compared with 2008? For me it's not even not logic but doesn't make any sense. Second thing Poland doesn't have the worst roads in Europe as you wrote - check it. In reply to your questions:
What do you think about the condition of roads in our country? Is it really as dramatic as everyone says?
Quality of asphalt is poor so the road cannot be good and smooth. Our goverment is responsible for that. They organize tenders with limited budget for investment (it's obvious that we always don't have enough money even if we're paying taxes from taxes). Contractors are accepting an offer and building what's in a project - it's not their fault. In most cases goverment doesn't care about materials used for building but to build as much km of roads as it is possible.
Do you agree that the lack of motorways and express roads is the main factor of such high death rate on our roads?
no.
What sort of punishment would you suggest for companies that build poor quality roads?
check my 1st answer.
Do you agree that the additional money from European Union and the organization of Euro 2012 has speed up road building?
no idea. will see.
Will the government plan of building additional 3000 km of motorways and express roads till 2012 succeed?
no idea. will see.
Assuming that city beltways will be eventually built, what temporary solution for decreasing traffic in cities would you suggest?
no idea. probably bicycles.
have a better picture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiTHkDP182w
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI live in small village next to one of main road to PŁOCK. There is corner where is many accidents only because nobody is doing nothing to change this situation.
ReplyDeleteThe situation on polish roads is dramatic.
The goverment got money to fix our roads, build new roads but where are these money.
Will the government plan of building additional 3000 km of motorways and express roads till 2012 succeed?
If I see, I'll believe. My answer is NOT IN THIS LIVE.
I have to agree that the condition of Polish roads is in real bad shape. Traveling to different countries in Europe you can see some professional and well-maintained roads. Express ways and highways are safer than all the small roads with pot holes in them. If we could afford to build wider and faster roads, the death rate should go down. Company that fails in completing a road work shouldn’t be allowed to do the same job any longer. There are many different companies waiting out there to jump in and build good roads. We got the money from European Union but you can’t really see much of a progress when it comes to building new express ways for the Euro 2012 and, as we all know, the time is running away. Will the government succeed? I really hope so. We wouldn’t want to lose a chance like that, a chance that can really pump up Polish economy and promote Poland to the world. There are many ways to decrease traffic in the cities, but one I find especially interesting – bike-sharing. Read more here: http://bike-sharing.blogspot.com/2009/07/velib-rides-into-two-years-in-bike.html .
ReplyDelete"What do you think about the condition of roads in our country? Is it really as dramatic as everyone says?"
ReplyDelete-Dramatic?? It's very delicate term;) Polish roads it's a joke!!!
"Do you agree that the lack of motorways and express roads is the main factor of such high death rate on our roads?"
- In my opinion yes. In other EU countries number of highways is much much higher than in Poland and number of fatal accidens it's much less than in Poland
"What sort of punishment would you suggest for companies that build poor quality roads?"
- Let them ride on their roads without any break during the year
"Do you agree that the additional money from European Union and the organization of Euro 2012 has speed up road building?"
- It's hard to say...
"Will the government plan of building additional 3000 km of motorways and express roads till 2012 succeed?"
- One word!;) LOL!!!
What do you think about the condition of roads in our country? Is it really as dramatic as everyone says?
ReplyDelete- If you are a driver you shouldn't ask this type of quastion becouse every driver knows how "great and fantastic" are most of polish road's
Do you agree that the lack of motorways and express roads is the main factor of such high death rate on our roads?
- I think that the main factor is the condition of polish road's and the "inteligents" of polish drivers
What sort of punishment would you suggest for companies that build poor quality roads?
- how many holes on the road that many ass kick's :D:D:D:D
Do you agree that the additional money from European Union and the organization of Euro 2012 has speed up road building?
- Maybe a little but probably a lot of the money ended in the pocket's of some higher-ups