The ŘSD is preparing an analysis of highway construction costs

Prague - No later than the end of this year, the Directorate of Roads and Highways (ŘSD) will have an analysis of the actual costs of highway construction in the Czech Republic. In an interview for the weekly Profit, which will be published on Monday, the general director of ŘSD, Alfred Brunclík, stated this. Since taking up this position in March of this year, he has continually faced opinions that highways are being built too expensively in the Czech Republic compared to neighboring countries.
According to him, the Ministry of Transport has initiated the creation of a special commission, which is overseen by the Czech Technical University (ČVUT) and is working on a professional analysis. "In addition to answering the question of whether highways are being built too expensively here, it should also establish unit price levels that should be used for highway construction," said Brunclík.
He further stated that the cost of constructing a highway consists of a variety of parameters, and in Czech conditions, geology and terrain have a strong influence, along with ecological factors and then laws. "While in Germany, for example, highways are built and individual communications are connected to them under the management of their owners, in our case, the highway is instead connected to these communications at the expense of the state," expressed Brunclík. These costs inevitably reflect in the price.
Brunclík himself asserts that there are reserves in highway design. However, he currently does not have specific evidence to support this claim. "There is a certain inertia in project preparation, so I cannot substantiate my claim with new projects after five months. However, we have credible information that in some cases, projects are unnecessarily overestimated financially," he emphasized.
New tenders for contractors for the completion of the D8 highway or the continuation of the D1 towards Přerov will already be issued according to new rules, in which more attention will be paid to project costs, he added.
According to all comparable criteria with European countries, highways are being built in the Czech Republic at the highest cost and very slowly. The highest cost per kilometer of highway construction in the history of Czech highways was incurred in the construction of the D8 highway section from Ústí nad Labem to the German border, which was opened last December. The construction of the 23.4-kilometer-long section cost approximately 19 billion crowns. However, the highway overcomes the unfavorable terrain of the Ore Mountains, with 1.5 kilometers of bridges and over 2.5 kilometers of tunnels.
However, the progress of construction was also criticized by the Supreme Audit Office. Last December, it pointed out that the construction of the D8 highway became more expensive due to an unclear tender, in which the antitrust office was also involved, by one billion crowns.
Experts and representatives of the state, however, assert that the construction of Czech highways is also made more expensive by the demands of towns and municipalities, which want long highway connectors or new grade-separated interchanges.