The work on the bumpy D1 highway between Prague and Brno will be completed by October, according to minister of transport Karel Havlíček.
The upgrade is part of a broad modernization program to redo work done by the Communist regime decades ago.
Havlíček also says that an additional 46 kilometers of new motorways will be built in 2021, such as the D35 road between Časy and Opatovice, the D11 between Hradec Králové and Jaroměří, and the D55 that runs past Otrokovice.
Radek Mátl, head of the Road and Motorway Directorate (ŘSD) says that the construction is probably going to cause some pretty rough traffic and congestion throughout the country. The worst of it will likely be on the D5 highway through Plzeň, the D8 highway through Prague, and the D35 near Mohelnice.
“It’s going to be difficult for drivers so I want to appeal to everyone to drive carefully and respect traffic signs,” Mátl said.
“By mid-October, the D1 will be finished, but by August we can start running traffic through most of the lanes and just perform some finishing touch-ups.”
According to Mátl, road workers in the Czech Republic are working at twice the normal annual rate in 2021. The ramp-up in production is aided by an increase in budget to the ŘSD, which’s now funded by 61 billion CZK this year, compared to 55 billion CZK last year.
“Not that long ago, the entire ŘSD budget was just 25 billion CZK,” Havlíček said.
Featured image is Highway D1 in the Czech Republic by Ondřej Koníček via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0
