“The section between Hořice and Úlibice is 16.3 kilometers long and will cost 4.33 billion crowns without VAT,” said General Director of the Directorate of Roads and Highways Radek Mátl. After its completion, traffic will be relieved in the municipalities of Ostroměř, Bílsko, Konecchlumí and Podhorní Újezd, which are crossed by the existing first-class road. The new route, however, leads outside built-up areas, in addition through relatively flat areas.
Nevertheless, it will be necessary to build nineteen bridges, two highway rest stops or a kilometer of bridge structures. There will also be a Chomutice interchange, which will have a delta shape and its branches will be 1.2 kilometers long, and nine anti-noise walls with a total length of 2.8 kilometers.
“At the beginning near Úlibice and in the area of the level crossing, the construction encroaches on areas that are used as field agricultural airports. This will have to be relocated,” added Jan Rýdl, spokesman for the Directorate of Roads and Highways.
“Among other things, we will move five million tons of earth, lay 85 kilometers of pipelines and eleven thousand cubic meters of concrete and asphalt to the area of seventy football fields,” added Martin Bašár, chairman of the board of Strabag, which is building this section of the highway together with Firesta.
Canceled EIA means delay
After this section and the subsequent Úlibice bypass are completed, the highway should continue through Český raj to Liberec, but only as a diversion of the existing I/35. There, the Directorate of Roads and Highways has not yet obtained all the necessary permits. In particular, the cancellation of the EIA approval opinion from 2021 by the then Minister of the Environment Petr Hladík (KDU-ČSL) is missing.
“We are waiting for the remedial decisions that we filed. It is a cassation complaint against the decision of the Municipal Court in Prague, which rejected our appeal to cancel the EIA. We also filed an appeal directly with the Ministry of the Environment, which has also not been decided yet,” said Radek Mátl.
If it were necessary to repeat the entire EIA process, a delay of two to three years is expected. It would be necessary to rework the documentation, request a new opinion, go through the entire process of issuing it, and subsequently incorporate any new opinions into the project documentation.
On the contrary, the aforementioned Úlibice bypass should start to be built this year. “We have a valid building permit and purchased land. Now we are waiting for a competition to carry out an archaeological survey. It should take place in the summer. There is also a competition for a construction contractor. We are waiting for tenders to be submitted, the current date is May 29,” added Mátl.
The construction of the bypass should be completed so that it can be opened together with the D35 section between Hořice and Úlibice, which is currently under construction.
Photo: Ludmila Žlábková, Fairpress
