Since March 2020, the reconstruction and adaptation of “Section 2,” nearly 22 kilometers long, of national road No. 18 to motorway standards has been underway. This is the section that begins near the Żary Zachód interchange heading toward Wrocław and ends 4 km before the Iłowa interchange. The works are scheduled to be completed in the second half of 2022, but may continue into 2023. We wrote about the construction in the article: The “longest staircase in Europe” will disappear.
Heavy vehicles used to transport bulk materials (haul trucks), moving from the lane under renovation onto the lane used by cars, cause traffic jams and cover the road with mud, sand and stones from the construction site.
According to a reader who frequently travels this route, this is a major inconvenience for drivers.
The haul trucks leaving the lane under construction travel at 30 km/h and cause traffic jams to form there. That is not all. These heavy vehicles dirty the road with stones, sand and mud. No one cleans the road, and there is no police presence to monitor the situation. The haul trucks are essentially unregistered work machines, so it is unclear who would be held responsible for a possible collision or accident involving such a vehicle.
We asked the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways about the matter. The situation described by the reader has been reported, and the construction site is continuously monitored by GDDKiA employees.
The reader’s comments were forwarded to the team supervising the construction and to the contractor. Our employees’ observations confirm the issue, while noting that they identified the problem and ordered the contractor to clean the road surface open to traffic more frequently and to limit construction-vehicle traffic on the northern carriageway. At present, the contractor declares that haul-truck traffic on the northern carriageway is limited. The situation is continuously monitored by our employees.
It should be remembered, however, that this is a construction site, including the northern carriageway, and the contractor uses the northern carriageway, among other things, to transport materials. At the same time, the contractor is trying to minimize the resulting disruptions. It can be said that vehicle traffic is taking place “through the construction site” and has been permitted under a temporary traffic-management scheme containing numerous restrictions due to the ongoing construction works. Unfortunately, disruptions will occur, and particular caution should be exercised when traveling on this road.
Anna Jakubowska, Office of the Branch Director, Social Communication Department