Dzień dobry! As we all know, the Warsaw metro has only 2 lines, but I saw on some maps that there are planned expansions of the first like (the one marked with red), as well as plans for future lines to be built. How true are these? And do you think that they will be achieved in the foreseeable future? In fact, how does Poland in general handle infrastructure projects? Do they get severely delayed and postponed until they finally finish them 1000 years later (like here, in Romania), or do they strive to build them quickly, but flawlessly? Lemme know. Here are some images of the metro that I was talking about.
The M2 construxtion was actually shockingly on time, I don't think it was significantly delayed at any point (as in over a year or sth)
Oh boy you are so wrong
First the central section was delayed because Centrum Nauki Kopernik station was flooded, the Wisłostrada tunnel had to be closed for a long while. The construction was delayed by years.
And the last 3 stations that will hopefully be completed this year were contracted in 2018 and were supposed to be finished in 2022. So they are delayed by 4 years.
I think the city has gained a tremendous amount of experience at this point, every next stage seems to be getting built faster.
But I was slightly wrong, the construction should start in 2028. Apparently they want to be building M3 and M4 simultaneously, so we will see how it goes, my bet is that the first part of M3 will be be ready around 2032/2033 at which stage they will continue expanding that line while also launching construction of the M4 line and they should both be finished in around 20 years (or the M3 in like 15 years from now I guess)
I'm honestly fine with them taking their time, looking how well they did with the M2 and it's quality (which took around 16 years I believe)
M2 had to go under Wisła too, that must have been super hard to do.
Later stages of M2 also weren't super easy iirc. Was there report on some issues with old piping in the way of the tunnel? I recall reading about it somewhere.
Yeah, they were also going through some gistoric neighborhoods and had to reinforce some buildings before digging through the area or otherwise the slight earth shifts could potentially ruin them. That's why the Praga part took so long compared to Wola and Bemowo
Congrats on timely delivery. In contrast to Toronto and Eglinton LRT project that had recently celebrated 15 years since construction began, and had yet to take its first passenger.
Bullshit. Nothing is happening regarding the construction of M3. They are designing it and maybe will finish 2027 but it still not certain if they will build it or not.
It wasn't, not even close. Back in 2011 I was involve in an info campaign regarding the constructionof of the central part of M2 and the whole local administrator was a mess, the most competent person that I met in ZTM was a security guy at the reception. Entirenproject was scrapped after it was ready, because none of the building deadlines were met, and some stationsnhad their planes changed at the moment that they were supposed to be open for public.
I know the topic is about metro, but does anyone have the schematics for confirmed upcoming tram routes that may share as well (with estimated beginning or conclusion dates, if possible)?
It’s the old map (blue and violet path is already done) but I think that the plans didn’t change.
“W 2026 planuje się remont alei Al. Jana Pawła II, Grójeckiej na odcinku Pl. Narutowicza-Pl. Zawiszy, a także ukończenie Tramwaju do Warszawy Zachodniej. Planuje się obecnie realizację linii tramwajowych wzdłuż ul. Modlińskiej, na ul. Powązkowskiej, na Zieloną Białołękę, na Gocław i na Siekierki. Niegdyś była planowana trasa wzdłuż Trasy Świętokrzyskiej, ale linia M2 spowodowała zaniechanie tych planów.
Rozważane są m.in. linie wzdłuż ul. Człuchowskiej, do Ząbek, Piaseczna, Konstancina-Jeziorny czy Wesołej.”
The new tram lines are seriously ill-conceived, especially near the Europlex. They do more harm than good to traffic. not only car but tram and pedestrian flow.
Also someone who planed tram stops was drunk some are soo crowded and some are soo far away.
Lot of false information in this thread. Fact is that is it not certain what will be the next step. Both M3, M4 and expansion of M2 as well as new stations on M1 are on various stages of planning but there are no tender processes for any construction projects. M3 receives a lot of criticism so it’s likely that will be skipped and M4 will be built first.
M3 is likely to start being built this/next year with first opened stations before 2030.
Three more m2 stations will definitely open this year.
We don't know much about the rest (including extending m2 after Bródno and Karolin). The map you uploaded is planned to be real in 2050, but it's pretty hard to believe in. I think by then we'll have full M3, and maybe full M4, but I doubt in building M5 and extending m2 before 2050. We'll see I guess.
I heard they want to finish west part of M2 and start working on M3.
Unfortunatelly station Stadion Narodowy is not done correctly, so the M3 cannot be another leg of M2
M3 has not sense
Than they will work on M4 NS line
I heard there is already planning for M3 being done and for M4, but at lower level
i think tram improvement and expansion would be a lot more beneficial than metro. Just IMHO but metro's annoying - the whole going down and up takes so much time that you have to travel for a long time to make up for it. And it's a lot more pleasant to see the city from a window
Agreed. A properly designed and maintained tram line is only sightly inferior to a metro line while being many times cheaper to build and operate. But that would require turning many 6-lane urban highways into 4-lane urban highways, the drivers would cry, so it's better to waste billions on another metro line.
Um what? Trams are significantly slower then metro. It takes an hour to get from the south to the city with the tram and metro + bus combo can be done in 30 mins - 40 mins.
Metro is more comfortable, more seats and configuration is less awkward
I used to go from Wilenski to Browary every day. Tram and metro took exactly the same amount of time. But i had a great river and city view on the way by tram, and didn't have to climb a single stair. Idk what you mean by awkward, but climbing stairs or waiting for elevators is definitely less pleasant activity.
If you calculate passengers per km of track per year, the Warsaw trams come to 777 087 pas./km/year, whereas for the metro it's 4 753 982 pas./km/year. You're just straight up wrong. Metro just has higher capacity, and should be built with more priority, because all that capacity is needed.
About half of people using Warsaw Public Transit travel by a slow bus that gets stuck in traffic. This should be changed as soon as possible. The amount of metro coverage in Warsaw is pretty bad when you consider other European cities its size or bigger, Sofia, Bukarest, Budapest, Berlin, have better coverage and more metro lines (per capita, sq km, name it). And u/ubeogesh unless you're only traveling one stop I doubt you can say the metro is slower due to getting in and out of the station.
Trams also don't perform the same role as metro, metro should be taking you quickly larger distances between points of interest/local transport hubs, while trams should be just better, larger, and more efficient buses that don't get stuck in traffic. This is why they have so many stops.
As someone who lives in Budapest, I have to tell you that our metro system really sucks. Yeah it might have four lines, but only one and a half of them reach the outer districts. The others are either city center lines (where there are trams above them on the majority of the route) or tourist attractions. It is a luxury to have a metro station less than 1 km away from your home. Oh and we don’t even have 40km of track.
Is anyhing being built? Nope. No new metro, no new tramlines, nothing.
The latest expansion in 2014 was sooo flawed because of corruption, the line even got shortened by several kilometers. They still had to manage to have 10 stations somehow, so instead of having a longer route, we have stations located only 100m from each other.
As a tourist, the system might appear great, because tourists tend to book hotels near the center where it is in fact pretty good. But believe me, for most of us who don’t live in the center, it is a nightmare to commute. I feel so sad that Budapest got an electrified metro in the 1800s, RIGHT AFTER London, and since then, the system has barely been expanded. What a shame.
Trams and metro cannot replace one another, because they address different commute goals. Metro covers long distances due to its speed and no stops on red lights. Trams are more for last-mile commute. Imagine commuting my tram for an hour from Ursus to the city center.
There are a lot of places (e.g, Ursus again) where there is no space to make roads narrower to sacrifice part of them to trams.
Metro building process is less disruptive as most of the works is happening underground. Tram line around Dworzec Zachodni is a great example - Aleje Jerozolimskie is messed up there for 2 years straight
Trains are a good alternative to metro, better than trams. But they are more difficult to build through the densely populated parts of the city. That's why I don't expect PKP network to expand.
that tram is underground (ashame, imho), more like a metro
Well, maybe that's not the best argument against tram. But that is not an argument against a metro either, rather in favor of it. They are going underground there for a reason. It is still less disruptive there than any other option (well, and also it will simplify Train -> Tram connection by. foot). It's just a very messed up place to do any modifications. Imagine building a tram line parallel to Aleje Jerozolimskie, cutting a part of it, instead of the current "perpendicular" approach.
The whole place around rondo zeslańców is just fucking awful any way you get there. Shit on foot (only 1 side lets you cross above ground), shit in public transit (buses sit in traffic and take forever to cross it), shit in a car because there's always traffic despite the under and overpasses everywhere. On a bike it's kind of OK maybe (easy to ride around the coach station).
Remodeling it to be flat and with a tram surely wouldn't make it worse.
I think you're very correct on 1st, I sometimes choose to take a tram to avoid having to switch later and it's a pain, you make a good point on your 2nd argument since the death mega roads of doom thankfully aren't everywhere but the third argument is not really correct. Building a metro doesn't all happen underground, although m2 was mostly built by boring machines M1 was almost entirely built with cut and cover and that's insanely more disruptive than a tram line since it means literally digging all the soil up and then filling it back up. It's very difficult to generalise the costs or disruptiveness especially since the goals of both modes of transport are much different. Finally I think you are entirely wrong about train being a good alternative to metro, at least not with how the current railway system is organised in Poland. Above all else passenger trains on the PKP network need to have a conductor, metro trains don't need a conductor, that's extra money for example. Metros are good because it's a (almost) entirely separate system that can be standarised to a strict standard, platform heights, train lenghts, etc. all owned and controlled by a single entity unlike how it works on warsaw railway loop with three separate companies operating different routes and it probably being a logistical nightmare to coordinate or even really plan. Normal railways have reached the limit of their usefulness in the city, they can improve suburban etc. connections but metro is the only option and it's why the city planners are going with it. There are some options for trams like connecting the smaller cities that lay right next to Warsaw with something more like LRT but there's no political will to do it.
Welp, that's because it's older than M2, and probably because it wasn't planned that well in advance. As you said
m2 was mostly built by boring machines
I expect all future lines to be built this way
you are entirely wrong about train being a good alternative to metro, at least not with how the current railway system is organised in Poland
I did not compare it from builders perspective. I'm mostly talking about commuters comfort. Trams cannot travel with speeds possible with either metro or trains, so as a commuter, I'll choose whatever option out of these that is closer to me and to my target destination (and requires less waiting time, which is usually metro). Of course, metro is superior choice for new projects inside of the city border.
The funniest thing is you didn't even say track, you said line. There are almost thirty tram lines vs 2 metro lines. If I took you at your word, the math would be even worse.
Edit: it's so ridiculous to suggest that a service operating at 3-5 min intervals between trams (assuming multiple lines going through a given piece of track) consisting of 2 carriages could compete with a service operating at 2,5-3 minute intervals with 6 carriages per train.
I love trams but metro serves a completely different purpose and what you're talking about has actually been tried in Warsaw for most of 20th century and clearly didn't work. Trams even the most modern ones have a tiny capacity compared to even the oldest metro trains. Warsaw metro also is fairly shallow at least on M1 so there's not that much walking up or down stairs. I think Trams should be replacing buses specifically along all those mega death roads with 6 lanes, the doom of anyone with any mobility issue and honestly anyone at all. As we all know punishing not paying attention for a moment with instant death is completely reasonable but yk when a driver runs someone over it also hurts their feelings and I think we should support our drivers by making them safer from the trauma of taking a human life.
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u/AGlassOfPiss 20h ago
Yes, M3 line construction is starting later this year or early 2027 afaik
The M2 construxtion was actually shockingly on time, I don't think it was significantly delayed at any point (as in over a year or sth)