Autostrada A2 (Poland)

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This article contains information about a planned or expected future road.
It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as the road's construction and/or completion approaches and more information becomes available.

Planned route of A2 motorway

Route of A2 motorway in relation to other motorways

The A2 highway in Poland is a motorway which, when completed, will run from west to east through central Poland, from the Polish-German border in Świecko/Frankfurt (Oder) (connecting to the German A12 autobahn), through Poznań, Łódź and Warsaw to the Polish-Belarusian border in Terespol/Brest. The highway is a part of the European route E30.

Out of the planned total length of 610 km, 252 km are now completed. A section of about 150 km Nowy Tomyśl-Poznań-Września-Konin) has been fully open since 2004. This section is a toll road, with the exception of a short stretch through Poznań which serves as that city's bypass. An additional 100 km section from Konin to Stryków near Łódź was opened on July 26, 2006, and will be toll-free at least for the first year of use.

Under current plans, the whole section between the border with Germany and Warsaw should be finished around 2010, giving the Polish capital its first motorway connection to the European motorway network. The section from Stryków to Warsaw will have its construction company selected in a bidding process in 2007, and construction will begin in the first half of 2008, to be finished by 2010 at the latest. The section from the Polish-German border to Nowy Tomyśl is presently in a somewhat uncertain situation, as the company which has the concession for building and maintaining that stretch of motorway and collecting tolls on it, Autostrada Wielkopolska S.A., is still negotiating with the Polish government the terms for financing the project. Once those negotiations are complete, construction could begin immediately, but it is not clear when that will occur.

The eastern section from Warsaw to the border with Belarus, about 170 km in length, is still in early planning stages. Construction of its first half, the section between Warsaw and Siedlce, is scheduled to begin around 2011, with completion occurring around 2014.

It is worth noting that the A2 highway will not formally run through Warsaw, as the inhabitants of the districts though which it was to pass have successfully blocked its construction. This outcome was somewhat unusual, since the corridor for the motorway has been reserved by the city planners since the 1970s and kept free of construction. Instead, the traffic will be rerouted through two express roads, of lower standard than the originally planned motorway. Paradoxically, one of these roads will run along the originally planned motorway corridor, so the residents who protested the construction will still end up with a busy road running through their districts, possibly even more inconvenient than the original road would have been. In the most affected area, the district of Ursynów, the express road will run in a tunnel, which will be built at considerable expense.