The first of the four sections of the A18 under construction is complete. As reported by the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways:

This is more than 20 km of comfortable motorway built using concrete technology. Traffic between the Żary Zachód and Iłowa interchanges will gradually be allowed on both carriageways in their full cross-section, as work progresses on removing temporary traffic-management elements, including concrete barriers separating traffic directions. The entire operation will be carried out while traffic is ongoing and will take approximately two weeks.

What about the Olszyna–Golnice section?

Road manager: – The reconstruction of the southern carriageway of DK18, along the 70-km section between Olszyna and Golnice towards Wrocław, is the second stage of work to adapt this road to motorway standards. The first stage was the construction of the northern carriageway of DK18, towards the state border at Olszyna, to motorway standards in 2004–2007. The decision authorizing the implementation of the road project (ZRID) for the southern carriageway of the future A18 was issued as early as 2011. However, it was only the decision of the Minister of Infrastructure in August 2018 that secured funding and enabled the project to proceed. If everything goes according to plan, in 2023 drivers will have the entire route, more than 70 km long and built to motorway standards, at their disposal.

Road workers add: – The old national road no. 18, now its southern carriageway, was built by the Germans in the 1930s. It formed part of the Berlin–Wrocław motorway. And it is precisely this carriageway that is now being modernized.

More about the completed section

General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways:

The section between the Żary Zachód and Iłowa interchanges was delivered under the Design and Build system. The contract for the works was signed on 14 November 2019 with the consortium of Kobylarnia and Mirbud. The cost of the completed works was more than PLN 260 million.

The contractors’ main task was to fully adapt the existing road system to motorway standards. The work mainly involved replacing the degraded surface of the southern carriageway and adapting the road’s load-bearing capacity to carry an 11.5-tonne axle load. The old surface was removed and replaced with a new one, and the carriageway was widened from 9.5 to 11 metres. Three overpasses for large animals, three viaducts and a bridge along the motorway were also built. The Żary Południe motorway interchange was reconstructed as well.

What was used for construction?

  • 113,000 cubic metres of concrete mix, of which 100,000 were used for the road surface and 13,000 for bridge structures. (That is more than half the amount of concrete used to build one of Poland’s tallest buildings, Sky Tower);
    • <li2,500 tonnes of steel, of which 500 tonnes comprised road-surface structural elements (dowels, anchors and reinforcement), while 2,000 tonnes were used for bridge structures. (That amounts to nearly one quarter of the steel used to build the National Stadium).

At the peak of mobilization, nearly 400 people worked on the construction site, using 200 pieces of equipment, including excavators, cranes, pavers, pile drivers, rollers, pile hammers and compactors.

What about the remaining sections?

Construction work is still underway on the three remaining sections:

  • state border at Olszyna–Żary,
  • Iłowa–the border between Lubusz and Lower Silesian voivodeships,
  • the border between Lubusz and Lower Silesian voivodeships–Golnice.

GDDKiA: – All of them are to be completed in the autumn of next year.