Motorway to port

29.01.2002

After nearly ten years of endeavour and preparatory works carried out, to a great extend, owing to the initiative of the Port of Gdansk - Thursday, January 17^th this year saw a significant event in the history of the A-1 motorway connection development with the City and the Port of Gdansk. This event was the conclusion of an agreement concerning preparatory works for the development of, so called, Southern Ring Road and the Sucharski Route.

The agreement has been signed by Jan Ryszard Kurylczyk - Governor of the Pomeranian Province (acting on his behalf was Stanislaw Kochanowski, Assistent Governor), Jan Zarebski - Marshal of the Pomeranian Province, Marian Switek - President of the Board of the Port of Gdansk Authority SA, Tadeusz Suwara - Director of the General Board of the Public Road Network in Warsaw, Franciszek Rogowicz - Director of the GDDP's Northern Division in Gdansk, Pawel Adamowicz - Mayor of Gdansk, Daniel Matyja - Commune Administrator of Pruszcz Gdanski and Pawel Czerny - Commune Administrator of Kolbudy.

The importance of this event is hard to be overestimated both, in terms of the traffic problems occurring in Gdansk and the development of the city and the port. The development of Gdansk's Southern Ring Road (running from the state road no. 7 to the Tri-city Ring Road) and the Sucharski Route (from the Southern Ring Road to the suspension bridge over the Martwa Wisla) that is based on a project prepared by the Road Engineering Department in the Technical University of Gdansk plays a key role when it comes to the international roads network development that comprises the transportation corridors IA and VI, as well as providing suitable conditions for the Via Hanseatica development. Moreover, it has a great impact on the expansion plans of the state roads network in the Tri-city, the operating of traffic system in Gdansk and the reduction of heavy transit traffic in the central parts of the city. Last but not least, the provision of the Southern Ring Road and the Sucharski Route means better connections efficiency between the Port of Gdansk and the state roads network including the A-1 motorway, which constitutes a sine qua non condition for the port's future expansion.

The recent decades saw a dynamic growth of the motor business resulting in greater car flows. A number of passenger cars has multiplied, whereas the motor transport ratio has increased ten times over the last 25 years - from 30 to 300 car owners per 1 thousand citizens. At the same time, a proportion of journeys made by own passenger cars has risen from 4 to 34 per cent causing over 100 per cent growth in the traffic volume of major roads system. This means that there's a daily number of over 1.25 million journeys in which a proportion of journeys made by the citizens of Gdansk amounts to 74 per cent. (1,191,300 journeys, 344,300 passenger cars journeys and 57,780 trucks and heavy vehicles journeys). To present even more detailed picture of the gigantic traffic congestions in the streets of Gdansk we decided to resort to yet another indicator: total daily traffic volume of the Thoroughfare Route (i.e. the major communication link between Gdansk, Sopot and Gdynia) and the parallel roads at the border line of the district of Wrzeszcz and the city centre amounts to 167,500 vehicles daily.

The analysis show that by the year 2020 a number of passenger cars will rise by around 50 per cent with the motor transport ratio growing from 300 to 450 car owners per 1 thousand citizens. Furthermore, the proportion of journeys made by means of passenger cars is forecast to increase from 34 per cent reported in 1998 to 50 per cent of a total number of journeys in 2020. An increase is also anticipated in the volume of commodities carriage by around 40 per cent. All these factors will result in the traffic flows in the city's major road system growing by around 90 per cent.

However, it is not only the urban area that takes the strain of ill-suited and insufficient road traffic infrastructure. Similarly, the connection road system between the port grounds and the state roads network and the city's roads system fails to provide reliable and efficient operating services and causes serious problems in terms of passengers and cargo transportation to the port grounds. The present situation will generate even greater problems in future. Bearing in mind a predicted economic development and Poland's membership in the European Union a substantial growth in the foreign trade (per head) is anticipated to reach a minimum rate equal to the one recorded for the economically less developed UE member states. Thus, it can be inferred that the crude oil throughput will at least triple, whereas the coal throughput is to be maintained at a present level with a growing handling rate of ore, grain and liquid gas, as well as a dynamic growth in container, ro-ro and ferry services. In addition, one third of the increased traffic at the ferry terminals operating in the Tri-city Conglomeration will be allocated to the Port of Gdansk that may result in the estimated annual turnover of about 200 thousand passengers, 50 thousand passenger cars, 20 thousand trucks and heavy vehicles and 15 thousand of rail cars.

If the anticipated level of growth is to be achieved an extend development of road and rail transportation is required both in the port and in the city. The external road system to provide a link between Gdansk, the Port of Gdansk and the state road network is expected to comprise: the Tri-city Ring Road in the north-south direction and the A-1 motorway as a part of the Trans-European North-South Motorway, while in the east-west direction: a state road no. S7 (Gdansk-Warsaw) and the railway connection no. S6 (Legowo-Szczecin) as parts of Via Hanseatica.

The agreement signed on January 17^th this year constitutes an agenda in support of the development of the Southern Ring Road and the Sucharski Route. It ensures that the entire scope of project works will have been accomplished by the year 2005 with the provision of sufficient financial resources for the investment. Phase I of the Southern Ring Road development and the Sucharski Route has been scheduled for the years 2005-2008, whereas Phase II for 2008-2010.