Press Release - The Szczecin Western Bypass (ZOS) on the S6 expressway will be nearly 50 km long, including a 5 km tunnel under the Oder River in the Police area - the longest road tunnel in Poland.

GDDKiA (Generalna Dyrekcja Dróg Krajowych i Autostrad) have sent out tender notices for publication in the EU Official Journal. Tomorrow, after their publication on that platform , the tender documents will be published elsewhere. 

Investment  plan

For the Western Bypass of Szczecin, GDDKiA has completed the development of construction projects for this year. Consequently, the investment contractors selected within the tender that there will be a need to develop detailed designs for carrying out construction work. For the Kołbaskowo - Dołuje and Dołuje - Police sections, the completion dates will be the same as for the standard road sections. 

Therefore, completion  is planned for 2028. The Police - Goleniów section with a tunnel under the Oder, on the other hand, will have a much longer implementation time, due to the need to excavate and equip a 5 km-long bi-tube tunnel. GDDKiA assumes that drivers will use this section in 2032.

Ring around Szczecin

The new route will relieve pressure on the current A6, S3 and S6 roads that bypass Szczecin from the south and east. During the summer months, slowdowns and congestion form on the existing route due to heavy traffic. The new S6 will close the ring around Szczecin, significantly improving the connectivity of the entire Szczecin area with the highway network. The new road will be particularly important for  Police, a town located north of Szczecin. At present, it is 58 km to get from Police to the Goleniów Północ junction (S3/S6) on the other side of the Oder River. Once the bypass is built, this route will be shortened to 23 km and the journey time will be reduced. A considerable amount of traffic will be diverted from the centre of Szczecin, including vehicles travelling to the chemical plant in Police.

The construction of the Szczecin Western Bypass is envisaged in the Government's Programme for the Construction of National Roads to 2030 (with an outlook to 2033). 

Tunnel under the Oder River - a key element of the investment

The Western Bypass of Szczecin will cross the River Oder north of Police, which is crossed by a waterway to the port of Szczecin. Due to terrain and environmental issues, the S6 will pass under the Oder River through a 5 km long bi-tube tunnel - outer diameter almost 15 m - to be driven with a TBM and with 19 bypasses to be used primarily for emergency evacuation. The bottom of the tunnel structure will descend a maximum of 51 m below ground level, while the carriageway will be at a depth of up to 45 m. The tunnel entrance sections will be approximately 600 m long.

Three implementation sections

The construction of the Szczecin Western Bypass along the S6 expressway has been divided into three implementation sections. 

Kołbaskowo - Dołuje (13.6 km)

This section will start at the junction with stage II of the bypass of Przecław and Warzymice within DK13. Here the ZOS will join the A6 motorway via a new road layout. The route will then cross the Berlin-Szczecin railway line via a viaduct. The road continues in a northerly direction, passing the town of Będargowo from the east. Beyond this village the road junction at Będargowo will be located. The S6 will then cross the Szczecin-Stobno Szczecin railway line (there will be a 284 m long flyover - the longest bridge structure on the entire ZOS). The S6 between Dołuje and Skarbimierzyce will cross the current DK10. The Dołuje road junction will be built about 900 m north of the DK10 and will connect the S6 with the Mierzyn bypass along the DK10, which will be built in parallel with the ZOS by the GDDKiA and the City of Szczecin. Along the S6, there will also be a connector to the current DK10 between Skarbimierzyce and Doluje. Further on, the S6 will bypass Wolczkowo from the west (the first implementation section of the ZOS will end near this village).   

Two road junctions and 18 bridges, including 8 animal crossings, will be built along this section. A road maintenance circuit at the Siadło Górne junction will also be built as part of the investment.  

Dołuje - Police (11.9 km)

This section will start west of the town of Wolczkowo. The new route will then cross the district road Wolczkowo - Dobra. The Dobra road junction will be realised in a new location. It will connect the S6 from the east with the Wolczkowo bypass (to be realised by the Dobra municipality) and from the west with Dereszowa Street and through it with the existing district road. Further on, the new S6 will pass between the villages of Slawoszewo and Bartoszewo. To the south of the former village, the Sławoszewo Service Area (MOP) will be located. Further on, the new S6 will head east. The route will enter forested areas, where up to four upper animal crossings are planned. The S6 expressway will cross provincial road 115 (DW115) south of Tanowo and then DW114 east of this village. At the junction with DW114, the Tanowo road junction will be constructed. Then, the expressway will run north from the town of Trzeszczyn. This is also where the second implementation section of the ZOS will end. 

As part of this section, two road junctions and 14 bridges will be built, including four upper animal crossings and five lower ones. 

Police - Goleniów (23.4 km) including the tunnel

The section will start about 1.5 km west of the Police road junction, which will be built at the junction with Kuźnicka and Piotra i Paweł streets in Police (leading to the Chemical Plant) and a connector towards DW114 and the bypass currently being constructed by the Police municipality. A road circuit with a Tunnel Management Centre will be located at the junction. Shortly after the junction, an inlet to the road tunnel will begin, passing under the installations of the Chemical Plant, railway lines, DW114, Police port areas and the current of the Oder River. The outlet will be located about 500 m from the eastern bank of the Oder. The S6 after exiting at ground level will run towards the town of Święta, bypassing this town from the north. The road will continue in an easterly direction, passing to the north of the town of Modrzewie, where a road junction will be located at the junction with the DW111. Approximately 2.5 km to the east of the Modrzewie road junction, the Boleslawice MOP will be constructed, where, in addition to car parks and toilets, provision is made for the construction of a petrol station and restaurant. The route will connect to the existing S3 and S6 expressways at the Goleniów Północ junction, which will be extended to include relations towards the new S6.  

The investment will include the construction of two road junctions and the extension of one, the construction of 22 bridges, including as many as eight over watercourses. Their abutments will be spaced wider to provide adequate space along the watercourse for animal passage. Two large upper animal crossings will also be built. 

The concept of building a road that will bypass Szczecin from the north and west, including a crossing over the Oder, was first conceived in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The first concepts for the route were prepared in the 1990s. From 2007, the local authorities, together with the Provincial Government, prepared the documentation necessary to obtain an environmental decision and then carried out a process lasting several years to obtain this decision. In 2015, the Western Bypass of Szczecin was included in the Regulation of the Council of Ministers on the network of motorways and motorways as the route of the S6 expressway. In December 2017, the Marshal's Office of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship obtained the final environmental decision, in which the course of this investment was determined, a variant for passing under the Oder River through a hollow tunnel was selected and the environmental conditions for implementation were specified. Subsequently, the preparatory process was already conducted by the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways. 

 In 2018, we announced a tender for the development of the Programme Concept with subsoil investigations. We received the complete documentation, which cost PLN 24 million, in 2021. For it, a wide range of subsoil investigations were carried out - including drilling to a depth of 90 m on the course of the tunnel under the Oder. The documentation developed at that time established the basic design solutions and set the final length of the tunnel under the Oder at 5 km, which avoided collisions with the area and installations of the Chemical Plant in Police. 

 A further phase of design work - the preparation of the construction project - started in 2022. The work was already being carried out by individual implementation sections. The total cost of this work reached PLN 60 million. Detailed project documentation was prepared, together with reports for the reassessment of environmental impact. During this work, particular attention was paid to the selection of optimum design solutions, especially for engineering structures, including the tunnel under the Oder. A total of 63 km of drilling and 22 km of sounding at depths ranging from 3 to 90 m were carried out during the design work carried out in recent years. 

In 2024, the design documentation was completed and accepted, which enabled the application for a decision to authorise the road project to be submitted at the end of September. The procedure for obtaining this decision is currently underway and is expected to be issued in the first half of next year. This will enable the start of construction work and the procedure related to the payment of compensation for properties taken over for the road.

For further information click here for a video and pl/32 for tunnelbuilder archive. Visit https://www.gov.pl/. 51/24.