Poland has a poorly developed infrastructure of roads and expressways by Western European standards. There are very few main expressways (autostrady, singular - autostrada), a few two-lane express roads of mixed quality (typically with a median but no highway interchanges), and an extensive network of single-lane highways connecting all major cities.
The quality of Polish transportation infrastructure constitutes an important barrier to the country's development, especially in the context of the European integration. Although, the total length of the roads is relatively high, Poland is missing minimum required standard density of motorways and expressways. The major routes connecting major cities total 18,036 km in length (2001 data). On December 31, 2001, only 398 km of these were expressways (mostly not up to modern standards), while 206,2 km were express roads. Large stretches of the expressways (about 140 km), especially those build by Germany before WWII, were in such bad shape as to require complete reconstruction. 4808 km of the routes were classified as part of TINA European transport corridors, but only 7% of these (346 km) were up to EU standards (i.e. able to handle loads of 11,5 tons per axle). In the years 1990-2001 only 138 km of expressways and 33 km of express roads were build. At the end of 2001 only 38 km of new expressways were under construction. According to the latest data, during 2004 67 km of expressways were opened to traffic, while 284 km were under construction (or reconstruction) at the end of the year. 8,6 km of express roads were also completed during 2004.
In recent years, the situation has been improving and government spending on road construction recently saw a huge increase, due to the inflow of European Union funds for infrastructure projects. Currently three major expressways spanning the entire country are being planned or built, to be completely finished some time in the next decade, a level of development achieved in Western Europe decades ago. By 2008 most of the largest cities (Poznan, Wroclaw, Lodz, Warsaw, Krakow, Katowice) will have an expressway connecting them with the expressway network of Western Europe. There are also plans to build a system of express roads which will not be expressways but will have many of their features.
