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Highways in Poland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Controlled-access highways in Poland are part of the national roads network and they are divided into motorways and expressways. Both types of highways feature grade-separated interchanges with all other roads, emergency lanes, feeder lanes, wildlife crossings and dedicated roadside rest areas. Motorways differ from expressways in their technical parameters like designated speed, permitted road curvature, lane widths or minimal distances between interchanges. Moreover, expressways might have single-carriageway sections in case of low traffic densities (as of 2025, such sections constitute 3% of the highway network).
Completed
Opened with lower speed limits
Construction
Tender
Environmental decision obtained
Planned
Completed
Under construction
Planned
The development of modern highways began in the 1970s, but proceeded very slowly under the communist rule and for the first years afterwards: only 434 km of highways (5% of the planned network) were constructed in total between 1970 and 2000.[2] Further 1050 km (13% of the network) were opened from 2001 to 2010, followed by 2773 km (34% of the network) constructed between 2011 and 2020.[3] It is planned to open about 2500 km (31%) in the 2020s, while the last about 1400 km (17%) would be completed in the 2030s.[4]
As of July 2025[update], there are 5221.7 km[5] of motorways and expressways in operation (62% of the intended network), while contracts for construction of further 1349 km[6][7] (16% of the network) are ongoing.
Except for the single-carriageway expressways, both types of highways fulfill the definition of a motorway as specified by OECD, WRA or Vienna Convention. Speed limits in Poland are 140 km/h on motorways and 120 km/h on expressways (100 km/h for single-carriageway expressway sections). Some motorway stretches are tolled.
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Technical parameters
Motorways are public roads with controlled access which are designated for motor vehicles only, and feature two carriageways with at least two continuous lanes each, divided by a median. They have no single-level intersections with any roads or other forms of land and water transport, and have wildlife crossings constructed above the road. They feature emergency lanes and feeder lanes, and are equipped with dedicated roadside rest areas. Motorways are the only roads in Poland which use blue background on road signs; others use green road signs.[8]
Expressways share most of the characteristics of motorways, differing mainly in that:
- Expressways are designated for lower speed than motorways. For example, the road curvature can be more severe and the lanes are usually narrower (3.5 m vs 3.75 m). Emergency lanes are also narrower (2.5 m vs 3 m) and in exceptional situations expressways might not have them at all.
- Expressways can have a single carriageway on sections with low traffic density.
- Motorways can have interchanges only with main roads, and the distance between interchanges is typically not less than 15 km (or 5 km near major cities), while expressways typically have more frequent interchanges. In exceptional situations, expressways might not have dedicated feeder lanes on interchanges.[8]
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List of motorways and expressways
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In 2004, the government published the ordinance defining the planned highway network of length about 7,200 km (4,474 mi).[9] Notable changes introduced in later amendments include re-routing S8 and adding S61 instead (a change related to the Rospuda Valley conflict),[10] introducing S16, S52 and A/S50,[11] as well as extending S5,[12] S8[13] and S10,[14] raising the total length to about 8,200 km (5,095 mi).[15][11]
The planned network consists of 16 major highways (over 200 km of intended length): A1, S3, S5, S7, S11, S17, S19, S61 running north to south and A2/S2, A4, S6/A6, S8/A8, S10, S12, S16, S74 running west to east, as well as 9 shorter highways:[b][c] [18][19][20][21][4]
Cross-sections
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As of July 2025, the operational sections of highways utilize the following cross-sections:
- 7% (367 km) – motorways and expressways with 2x3 or (occasionally) 2x4 or 2x5 lanes,
- 90% (4690 km) – motorways and expressways with 2x2 lanes,
- 3% (164 km) – single-carriageway expressways, of which 55 km with dual-carriageway fragments (2x2) around the interchanges.
All single-carriageway expressways are constructed with allocated space for a possible upgrade to dual-carriageway and all bridges above such highways are prepared to accommodate the second carriageway. Most of those sections are planned to be widened to full profile by 2033, the exceptions being S1 (near the Slovak border) and S22 (near the border with Kaliningrad Oblast) where widening is currently not expected.[4]
Substandard highways
Motorways and expressways constructed before 1999 do not have to fulfill technical parameters defined by the ministry ordinance. As of 2025, one notable case of a substandard highway remains:
- A4 on the section Krzyżowa – Wrocław (103 km) was constructed in years 1934 – 1937 (then the territory of Nazi Germany) and renovated in years 2002 – 2006. The road received new high quality surface but the geometry was kept unchanged and many overpasses above the motorway were kept. In effect, this part has no emergency lanes and the speed limit is decreased to 110 km/h. Its full reconstruction (and widening to three lanes per direction) is scheduled for years 2027 – 2031.[25]
Notable historical cases are:
Historical cases
- Expressways were formerly allowed to admit an at-grade intersection with a minor public road in exceptional cases. The last such section which remained operational past 1999 was S3 near Szczecin (19 km), opened in 1979, which featured two at-grade road intersections until the reconstruction conducted in years 2019 – 2020.[26][27][28] Since 2020, all expressways (as well as motorways) in Poland have grade-separated intersections, which became a formal requirement by 2022, when the provision allowing at-grade intersections on expressways was removed from the ordinance.[8]
- A6 near Szczecin (29 km) was constructed by Nazi Germany and kept using the original surface made of concrete slabs until the reconstruction conducted in years 1996 – 1999 and (easternmost fragment) 2017 – 2021.[29]
- A18 (70 km) had its southern carriageway constructed by Nazi Germany. The northern carriageway was constructed in 2004 – 2006, while the southern carriageway kept using the original concrete slabs until the reconstruction conducted in years 2020 – 2023.
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Speed limits
Other restrictions
- Pedestrians, bicycles, mopeds, and agricultural vehicles are not allowed on motorways.
- Minimum speed on motorways is 40 km/h except in extraordinary circumstances (e.g. snow, ice, or a car broken down).
- It is forbidden to stop except in extraordinary circumstances, or to travel backwards.
- Towing is not allowed on motorways, but is permitted on expressways.
Tolls
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Since 2023, all state-owned highways are free for vehicles up to 3.5 tons of permissible maximum weight[30][31] (for a passenger car with a trailer, the joint permissible maximum weight of the car and the trailer must not exceed 3.5 tons[32]). On some sections, old inactive infrastructure for toll collection is still in place.
The privately owned sections of A1, A2 and A4 are tolled. These sections are indicated by the motorway sign accompanied by the word Płatna.
Vehicles over 3.5 tons and buses
Using e-Toll is obligatory for buses as well as all vehicles with maximum permissible weight exceeding 3.5 tons (including the trailer) while driving on the Polish roads (not just the highways). More details can be found on the e-Toll website.[35]
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Traffic volumes
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Traffic volumes in Poland note rapid increase since the fall of communism in 1989: the annual average daily traffic recorded in 2020 amounts to over 360% of the average traffic recorded in 1990.[36][37] With the increasing traffic, the length of overburdened single-carriageway national roads[38] had also been steadily increasing until reaching the maximum of 1389 km in 2010.[39] Due to the large number of highway sections opened between 2010 and 2020, in that decade the length of overburdened roads has fallen down for the first time in history, from 1389 km in 2010 to 1121 km in 2020.[37]
The latest general measurement was conducted in 2020, although some measurement days were moved to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic which would have caused the results from 2020 to be unreliable.[40] The following highways recorded the highest volumes:[41]
The other highest and lowest recorded AADT values were:
The new general measurement is being conducted throughout 2025.
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History
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Before World War II
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The first plans of creation of a national highway network in Poland were conceived in the interwar period:
Plans
The main promoter of this concept was Professor Melchior Wladyslaw Nestorowicz of the Warsaw University of Technology, who organized three Road Congresses, during which a group of specialists discussed the creation of the network. On 5 March 1939, in the trade magazine Drogowiec, Professor Nestorowicz proposed a very ambitious plan for the construction of almost 5,000 kilometres of category I and II roads, based on similar programmes in Germany and Italy.[46] Nestorowicz sketched a map of the future system with the following routes:
First class roads would, according to the plans, consist of the following motorways (totalling some 2,500 km (1,553.4 mi):
- Warsaw - Łódź - 100 km
- Warsaw – Poznań - Polish-German border - 350 km
- Warsaw beltway - 130 km
- Poznań beltway - 80 km
- Gdynia – Bydgoszcz – Łódź – 500 km
- Łódź beltway - 90 km
- Bytow - Free City of Danzig border - 50 km
- Katowice – Kraków – Lwów - 375 km
- Warsaw – Lublin - Lwów – Sniatyn - Polish-Romanian border - 550 km
- Puławy – Sandomierz – Przemyśl - 175 km
Second class roads would consist of the following motorways, totalling another 2,295 km (1,430 mi):
- Piotrków Trybunalski - Kielce - Sandomierz - 180 km
- Warsaw – Kielce – Kraków - 180 km
- Łódź - Kalisz - Polish-German border north of Wrocław - 130 km
- Warsaw – Grodno – Vilnius – Polish - Lithuania - Latvian border near Daugavpils - 575 km
- Grodno - Nowogrodek - Polish-Soviet border near Minsk - 190 km
- Bydgoszcz – Poznań – Częstochowa - 350 km
- Katowice – Cieszyn – Polish-Czechoslovak border - 60 km
- Ostrołęka - Polish-East Prussian border - 50 km
- Grodno - Polish-Lithuanian border - 40 km
- Grodno - Brzesc nad Bugiem - Krasnystaw - 300 km
- Warsaw – Brzesc nad Bugiem - 170 km
In 1934, Nazi Germany started the construction of their motorway system, parts of which today form A18 and A4 to Wrocław (Breslau), as well as A6 (Szczecin bypass) and S22 (parts of the planned motorway to Königsberg). About half of them were constructed as single-carriageway with the intention of adding a second carriageway in later years. However, after 1938, warfare expenses meant little money would be invested into any infrastructure and only one 9 km single-carriageway piece west of Gliwice (now A4) was constructed.
In Poland, a 28 km stretch between Warlubie and Osiek (now DW214) was constructed in 1937 – 1939 in the motorway standard of the time (today not considered a highway) with a concrete surface, which was designed by Italian engineer Piero Puricelli. The motorway was planned to reach Gdynia, but the outbreak of the Second World War halted the plans.
1945 – 1972
The Potsdam conference defined the borders for communist Poland, which were very different from the pre-1939 ones. It received the so-called Regained Territories from the former Third Reich with the aforementioned motorway sections (some of them with first carriageway only). Most of the motorway bridges were destroyed by the warfare, but only a few were repaired or rebuilt in the first post-war years. The bridge over Ina river was reconstructed in 1972, and those on S22 only between 1996 and 2003.
Apart from the bridges, almost all the motorways were left in the same condition as they were in 1945 until the mid-1990s. The only road left from Nazi times that was completed by the People's Republic of Poland was a one-carriageway small section between Łęczyca and Lisowo (15 km of what is now DW142), which was built on the previous works of Nazis.
Plans
At the post-war year there were very ambitious plans to make a motorway network for the whole Poland. For example, engineer Eugeniusz Buszma has published his propositions to the network in the magazine "Drogowiec" (1946, issue 1):
- East – West (Słubice – Warsaw – Białystok) – 680 km
- North – South (Gdynia – Warsaw – Balkans) – 650 km
- Silesia – Baltic I (Gdańsk – Łódź – Katowice) – 460 km
- Pomeranian (Gdańsk – Szczecin) – 280 km
- Silesian (Wrocław – Katowice – Kraków) – 190 km
- Mazurian (Kaliningrad – Elbląg – Malbork) – 20 km
- Silesia – Baltic II (Bydgoszcz – Wrocław) – 260 km
- Łódź – Wrocław – (Prague) – 310 km
- Katowice – (Vienna) – 60 km
- Poznań – Szczecin – 200 km
- Radom – Lublin – (Lviv) – 220 km
In total, the mileage, according to the proposal, would total more than 3,300 km (2,050 mi).
After the addition of the sections built by the Third Reich the total network length had to be approx. 3700 km. In 1963 the Motorization Council at the Council of Ministers had presented the similar plan plus the motorways: Warsaw-Kraków-Zakopane, Kraków-Przemyśl, Warsaw-Bydgoszcz-Koszalin, Poznań-Koszalin i Warsaw-Terespol (approx. 1250 km).
Despite announcing such pompous plans, no motorway was opened in the meantime.
In the 1970s
Only in the 1970s did any works start.
Plans
In 1972 it was planned to build:
- the Gliwice-Kraków motorway (now A4)
- the second carriageway of the Wrocław-Gliwice motorway (also A4)
- the Warsaw-Katowice motorway (so-called "Gierkówka", now the S8/A1 road), in the near future
The plans were expanded in 1976 by the following sections:
- Tarnów – Kraków (now A4),
- eastern GOP (Górnośląski Okręg Przemysłowy) bypass (now S1, northern part),
- Bielsko-Biała – Cieszyn (now S52, southern part),
- Warszawa – Poznań (so-called Olimpijka, now A2),
- Łódź – Piotrków Trybunalski (now A1).
In 1973 – 1976, "Gierkówka" dual carriageway from Warsaw to Katowice (281 km (175 mi)) was built. Originally planned as a motorway, it was in the end constructed by adding another carriageway to the existing road, hence going through many villages and crossing with local roads. The part from Piotrków Trybunalski to Częstochowa (78 km) was constructed on a new route in a motorway alignment, but nonetheless the majority of the crossings between the highway and the other roads were constructed as one-level intersections with no viaducts or overpasses.
In the 1980s
Near the end of the 1970s the first construction of motorways started and continued to the next decade. The roads opened in the 1980s were the first motorways and expressways which generally meet the contemporary standards (at least with respect to their more important attributes), although in multiple cases the poor quality of their construction forced major renovations to be performed as soon as within the first 20 years of operation.[47][48]
The major routes planned as motorways were A1, A2 and A4, while other main routes were planned as expressways. The implementation of these plans, however, came at a very slow pace: throughout the 1980s, only an average of 21 km (13 mi) of highways in the whole country were being opened per year.
In the 1990s
In the III Republic of Poland, planned S3 was promoted to motorway A3 (the decision was later reversed) and a plan was introduced (also later reversed) of constructing motorway A8 Łódź – Wrocław – Bolków (now S8/A8/S5). Szczecin bypass (A6) and section Olszyna – Krzywa (then named A12, now A4/A18) were promoted to motorways, even though at that time the majority of their lengths was in bad shape, laid with the original concrete surface from the 1930s with no significant works having been performed on any of them throughout the whole communist period.
In the 2000s
As of the beginning of 2000, the vast majority of national and international traffic routes were served by regular national roads with at-grade intersections and pedestrian crossings, most of them leading through the centres of cities, towns and villages, and most of them single carriageway. Only the following number of highways was present:
- about 275 km (171 mi) of modern dual-carriageway motorways and expressways (3.5% of the network as planned nowadays),
- about 90 km (56 mi) of single-carriageway expressways,
- about 125 km (78 mi) of not-resurfaced Nazi German motorways from the 1930s,
- about 150 km (93 mi) of not-resurfaced Nazi German motorways on sections where only the first carriageway had been constructed.
Before Poland received the EU membership
At the beginning of the 21st century, the tempo of highway construction started to increase. The main focus was on the west–east motorways A4 and A2. In 2002, a long-awaited renovation of the A4 from Krzywa to Wrocław (93 km) has started, which included laying new high quality surface in place of the Nazi German concrete slabs, reconstruction of all the pre-WWII bridges on the motorway and renovation of the viaducts above the motorway.
This is also the period when Poland started introducing motorway tolls, first in 2000 for the A4 section between Mysłowice and Kraków.
Poland in European Union
1 May 2004 was a crucial day for the history of motorway construction and that is when the length of highway constructions increased the most. One of the major advantages of signing the European Union access document was that Poland could get access to large funds for co-financing the construction of new roads and upgrades of the existing road infrastructure.
These years, the existing scattered pieces of highways began to converge into the basis of the future network:
- until 2004, Katowice and Kraków (linked by A4) were the only pair of Poland's largest cities connected by a highway;
- in 2005, A4 connected Wrocław with Katowice and Kraków, while in 2009 – with Germany;
- in 2006, A2 connected Poznań with Łódź.
A large number of expressway bypasses of towns were also constructed at this time. On many of them, only one carriageway was built, with the allocated space prepared for easy construction of the second carriageway later.
2011 – 2015
In the five years from 2011 to 2015, 1563 kilometers of motorways and expressways were opened – about as much as in the whole prior history of highway construction combined. The main focus was on developing connections between Poland's largest cities, especially those serving as host venues of UEFA Euro 2012, as well as on extending A4 towards Ukraine.
The sections opened in 2011 – 2015 belonged to the following highways:
: + 273 km (A1 on the section Gdańsk – Łódź was completed in 2014)
: + 234 km (A2 on the section Germany – Warsaw was completed in 2012)
: + 88 km (S3 on the section Szczecin – A2 – Zielona Góra was completed in 2013, except that its older single-carriageway parts remained so until 2017)
: + 183 km
: + 138 km
: + 365 km (S8 on the section Wrocław – Łódź was completed in 2014)
: + 282 km in total
2016 – 2020
After the peak of investments before Euro 2012, very few new contracts for road construction were signed in 2012 and 2013. This resulted in a small number of sections being opened in 2015 and 2016, a large share of which were the last delayed fragments originally scheduled for a Euro 2012 opening. In particular:
- In 2016, the last delayed fragment of between Kraków and Ukraine was opened, making A4 the first major Polish highway completed on its whole length, as well as the first complete border-to-border highway connection.
- Also in 2016, the delayed bypass of Łódź was finished, making completed on its whole route except for those sections where national road 1 had already been a dual carriageway (see In the 1970s), allowing for a significantly lower priority of constructing the remaining stretch compared to other highways.
Since 2014, the number of signed contracts has risen again, resulting in the number of road openings having risen again since 2017.
The sections opened in 2016 – 2020 belonged to the following highways:
- : + 173 km
- : + 227 km (S5 on the section Poznań – Wrocław was completed in 2019)
- : + 128 km (S6 on the section Szczecin – Koszalin was completed in 2019)
- : + 213 km
- : + 128 km (S8 on its originally intended route from Wrocław to Białystok was completed in 2019; an extension to Kłodzko was later added to the plans)
: + 97 km (S17 on the section Warsaw – Lublin was completed in 2020)- : + 315 km in total (A4 was completed in 2016)
2021 – 2025
The high tempo of highway development continued in the 2020s. The main focus was on construction of new highways in the less populated eastern Poland, including the international routes Via Carpatia and Via Baltica.
The sections opened, or planned to get opened, in 2021 – 2025 belong to the following highways:
- : + 81 km (A1 was completed in 2022)
- : + 106 km
- : + 104 km (S3 is scheduled to get completed in 2025)
- : + 106 km
- : + 191 km (S7 on the section Warsaw – Kraków was completed in 2024; a temporary detour through Kraków north-western bypass will be in use until Kraków eastern bypass is completed in 2026)
- : + 80 km
: + 70 km (reconstruction of the second carriageway of A18 was completed in 2023)
: + 163 km (S19 "Via Carpathia" on the section Lublin – Rzeszów was completed in 2022, except that its older fragment with 2+1 lanes will remain so until 2026)
: + 183 km (S61 "Via Baltica" was opened on the whole length in 2024, the second carriageway is scheduled to get completed in 2025)
: + 206 km in total (S5 was completed in 2022 except its newly planned extensions to Ostróda and Bolków)
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Total length of highways by year
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See also
Notes
- Major changes in the network (e.g. opening new fragments of roads, signing all contracts for a planned road section) are accounted continuously, while a general update including all the details is done once per year (last: 15 November 2024). 'In total' length statistic is kept consistent as of the last general update, and might hence not be the exact sum of the current state of the table.
- Some highways can overlap. The table shows data without overlapping sections such that each fragment is counted exactly once, in accordance with how they are attributed in the ministry ordinance,[16] i.e. each common section is attributed to the road with the lower number (in case of two expressways overlapping) or to a motorway (in case of a motorway and an expressway overlapping), except for S12/S17 west of Lublin which is recorded as S17 in the sources.[17]
- First 48 km opened 1985 – 1988, reconstructed to modern standard in 2003.
Eastern half of S2 in Warsaw was opened in 2020 and 2021. - The southern carriageway was constructed between 1935 and 1938 by Nazi Germany. The northern carriageway was constructed alongside it between 2004 and 2006, but the road was not marked as a motorway (except for a short fragment with both carriageways reconstructed), as only the west-bound traffic could use the motorway-quality carriageway, while the east-bound traffic kept using the old carriageway with concrete slabs from the 1930s. The southern carriageway was reconstructed to modern motorway standard between 2020 and 2023 and the whole route was then designated as a motorway.
- Sections under active construction and sections under a joint Design & Build contract.
- Design phase, if it is being conducted as a part of the predesign process rather than as a part of a design-build contract.Late predesign phase, i.e. after having obtained environmental decision (0–2 years to finish).In the process of obtaining environmental decision (including if a non-final decision has been issued and is being appealed from).
- The national road 6 is currently routed through the Szczecin Southern Bypass (motorway A6) and then through expressway S6. Ultimately, after completion of the Szczecin Western Bypass, this new route will become S6 (it is not clear if A6 then retains its number and there will be two parallel routes with number 6, or if renumbering takes place). Until S6 gets rerouted, the existing route 6 is accounted jointly in the table.
- Until the remaining part of the Tricity 2nd bypass (S7) is complete, the transit traffic between Gdynia and Gdańsk is carried by the 1st Tricity bypass (S6).
- The road is planned to be constructed with expressway parameters and dual-carriageway profile at least up to Jabłonka (8 km away from the Slovak border). It is being considered whether the last 8 kilometers would also be constructed with expressway parameters or in a lower standard (with at-grade intersections and/or single-carriageway profile), which might depend on the traffic forecasts and the decisions regarding the planned standard of the cross-border connection to R3 in Slovakia.[22]
- The section from Rabka-Zdrój (current terminus of S7) to the Slovak border is planned to get completed by 2032.[22] From Kraków (A4) to Myślenice (current beginning of S7) the existing dual-carriageway DK7 is gradually geting upgraded with the aim of removing all at-grade intersections and pedestrian crossings by 2030. A separate expressway route would be constructed on this section by 2038, as the last fragment of the currently-planned highway network.[23]
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References
External links
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