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Budimex has started the construction of the Oświęcim bypass

News date: November 10, 2022
Budimex has started the construction of the Oświęcim bypass

On 07.11.2022, the first shovel went into the ground, and work began on the nine-kilometre-long bypass of Oświęcim being built by Budimex. The construction includes the construction of national road 44 – a high-speed trunk road constituting a bypass of Oświęcim connecting with the S1 Mysłowice – Bielsko-Biała expressway in the area of the Oświęcim junction.

 

The contract in the Design and Build formula was concluded with the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways, Krakow branch, on 10.07.2020, and the application for a decision on permission for the implementation of a road project was submitted in accordance with the Contract on 10.05.2021.

 

Construction will be carried out in the immediate vicinity of Natura 2000 areas and over the water intake ‘Zasole’ for the municipality and town of Oświęcim. The bypass is also in the immediate vicinity of the former Nazi Germany concentration camp Auschwitz – Birkenau Therefore, the project had to take into account the provisions and requirements resulting from the UNESCO Heritage Impact Assessment Report.

 

Due to the requirements of the Unesco Report for the protection of the Auschwitz/Birkenau memorial site, acoustic protections such as earth embankments and earth and panel screens were designed. Lowered road lighting and luminaires with directional light distribution to the road surface were also used to minimise the dispersion of light off the road. Greenery was designed to isolate the Oswiecim bypass visually from observation points of historically sensitive locations. ‘In the course of designing, an advanced analysis of the visibility from the Auschwitz Museum to the future road was additionally carried out through the efforts of the Contract’, says Paweł Zawiła, Budimex Contract Director.

 

In order to do this, a terrain model was reconstructed along with the greenery by means of photogrammetry using drones, a visualisation of the designed protection elements such as screens and earth embankments was added, and from the camp zone, a simulation was carried out as to whether elements of the road infrastructure or high vehicles would be visible with such protection. The analysis confirmed the correct selection of the vertical alignment and the effectiveness of the designed protections, and was highly rated by the international Unesco Commission’, adds Paweł Zawiła.

 

The investment includes the construction of:

  • 9 km of a high-speed dual carriageway trunk road with the accompanying infrastructure for traffic safety and environmental protection
  • 5 intersections
  • A bridge over the Vistula River – 432 m long – built using the slide-in bridge construction technology.
  • The WK2 viaduct – a passage under the active LK93 and LK882 railway lines.
  • A bridge over the Soła River, the Zasole water intake and the Kamieniec pond – 463m long – built using the overhang technology with a span of up to 140m.
  • Reconstruction of a 10.1km long high voltage line
  • Reconstruction of a gas pipeline
  • Construction and reconstruction of local roads with a length of 16.1km