Wąchock. They are fighting for the construction of a sidewalk along DK42, GDDKiA is talking about a new bypass

The residents of this housing estate in Wąchock live in the shadow of the busy national road No. 42. Many of them have to get into a car to get out of their homes. Otherwise, they risk being hit because there is no sidewalk for several hundred meters. A section of the pedestrian route leading towards the buildings suddenly ends. Then you have to walk along the side of the road – between the ditch and the speeding cars.

Read also: Where the river flooded, an office will be built. Even though the mayor doesn't want to go there

On average, several thousand vehicles travel on the route that connects Skarżysko-Kamienna with Starachowice. Some of them are trucks, because this is currently the best route connecting these two district cities.

– It's so dangerous… They built a piece of pavement on the new section, and it's gone. We are completely cut off. Children would like to walk or bike to school. It's impossible, not like this. There is a pedestrian crossing, but drivers don't even stop there – one of the residents of Wąchock told us. – 21st century and we don't have a sidewalk. We have to drive everywhere. My neighbor has lived here for 80 years and can't wait, she added.

At one of the pedestrian crossings we meet Mrs. Anna, a senior who went Nordic walking. We asked if he was not afraid to walk along the national road. – I'm always afraid. I was even more afraid when I went to school with my children. We have been asking for years, but it has never been possible, so we have lost hope, said Mrs. Anna.

Read also: Construction of the bypass, expansion of the airport and railway networks. The government has plans for Warsaw

What if there are snowdrifts on the roadsides? – Then I won't go at all. Unless I have to go to the store. If my husband isn't there, I go as far as I can. On the street, but carefully, added Mrs. Anna.

Police data show that in 2023 there were 28 collisions and two accidents in the Wąchock commune – and therefore also in the towns of Parszów and Wielka Wieś – in 2023, in which a total of two people were injured. This year it was worse – police data show 29 collisions and as many as four accidents, in which three people were injured and one died.

The fatal victim was a 14-year-old girlwho tried to get to the other side at a marked pedestrian crossing in Parszów. She was hit by a truck driver. The inhabitants of Wąchock themselves are afraid that a similar tragedy will happen in their country.

– At Staszica Street in Parszów there are 300 meters of national road without a sidewalk. Please imagine this very narrow roadside in winter, when there are half-meter snowdrifts. Sometimes this snow has to be pushed into a ditch to make it possible to cross. There is a shop nearby, where pilgrimages go for shopping, added Norbert Dudek, deputy mayor of Wąchock. – And there are excellent conditions for building a sidewalk there. Nothing to do but come in and do it, he said.

The situation is similar at Powstańców Street (in Google maps it is described as Modrzewiowa), where the sidewalk leading to the estate of single-family houses suddenly ends. It doesn't even reach the bus stop.

– But General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways is not interested in it, and under the law we cannot add even a zloty to this road – emphasized the mayor of the commune, Robert Janus. – We talk about it all the time. The residents are so desperate that they may soon block the road in protest. I'm not surprised by them, he noted.

Read also: There is an opening date for the northern bypass of Krakow and part of the S7

GDDKiA defends itself by pointing to the Wąchock bypass that is currently under construction. As Małgorzata Pawelec-Buras, spokeswoman for the Kielce branch of the General Directorate, explained in an interview with tvn24.pl, the new route will be opened in the middle of next year.

– It will be a dual carriageway with secured pedestrian routes and pedestrian crossings on sections where pedestrian traffic has been identified. This will be the new national road 42. The fragment you are asking about (the one without the sidewalk – ed.) will then cease to be a national road and will be handed over to the Świętokrzyskie Provincial Roads Authority in accordance with the regulations – noted the spokeswoman.

– We cannot plan the construction of a sidewalk now. Obtaining the necessary consents and starting construction would take many months, and in about half a year this road will no longer be ours. The bypass is not a new project, because its implementation started in 2020, and the investment received the environmental and ZRID decision 10 years earlier, added Pawelec-Buras.

The decision to build the sidewalk – but only after the bypass is opened – will be made by the Świętokrzyskie Provincial Road Authority. The head of the investment department at ŚZDW admitted in an interview with “Gazeta Wyborcza” that as long as the road is the responsibility of GDDKiA, the management board is not planning any investments there.

– The voivodeship will definitely hand over this road to the district authorities. We will talk with the starosty to finally build this sidewalk, we want to co-finance this investment – declared Mayor Robert Janus.

The Wąchock bypass along national road No. 42 will be moved away from buildings – it will bypass the area of ​​Parszów from the north, and Wąchock itself from the south. The length of the new dual carriageway section between Skarżysko-Kamienna and Starachowice will be 11.7 km.

According to the plan, construction will be completed in the summer of 2025.

In the future, the Wąchock bypass will be connected with the 3.5-kilometer Starachowice bypass, which was opened in September. Both roads are about a kilometer from each other.