2019-06-19

Gdynia at the gates of the corridor

Port cities can make the best of their seaside location, however they also encounter a number of problems unknown to their inland counterparts. These problems multiply in the metropolitan areas situated at the cross-roads of European transport corridors of the TENT-T network.  That’s why a port which processes millions of tons of cargo and hundreds of thousands vehicles annually and a city, that wishes to look after its residents, are not always good neighbours. How to ensure a peaceful co-existence, without limiting each other’s growth, without wasting the opportunities created by their attractive location, how to serve one another for the benefit and comfort of the residents? The participants of the recently completed EU TENT acle project, or more accurately the Gdynia part of the project, or a Western Pommeranian one in its conception, have attempted to point the way forward, towards working out solutions to some of these problems. 

The “Tent acle “ project - utilizing of corridors of the TENT-T base network for the well-being, growth and unity” , was implemented in terms of the strategy for economic and social development of the Baltic Region  and the European Union. Was a continuation of supplementation of earlier projects implemented earlier in terms of subsequent phases of the flagship  INERREG Region of the Baltic Sea programme, such as:  Adriatic-Baltic Landbridge,  South-North Axis (SoNorA) and the Bothnian Green Logistic Corridor (BGLC).

In Spring 2015 the Gdynia Logistic Valley was incorporated into the TENTacle project. This happened thanks to the decision of the Management Board of the Port of Gdynia Authority, which decided to become one of the main partners of the project. And its the port which will hold the key influence over the city’s transport network, especially in the light of its transformation into a base node of the TENT-T network.

The first objective was to determine precisely the actual route of the Baltic-Adriatic corridor connected through various port and urban transport nodes. All of its routes and branches, from Scandinavia down to the Mediterranean Sea, should be unified, in terms of status and standars. Moreover, the base network of the corridor is still missing several sections; it has many narrow bottle-neck areas, especially in the so-called ‘last mile’ And the potential and attractiveness of the northern part of the corridor will be determined by the 4 Polish base ports, including Gdynia.

According to the Eurostat data, in 2016 the Polish seaports serviced the smallest tonnage per capita among other European ports. In the last 2 years there may have been a slight improvement, however there is still a huge gap separating these ports from the European leaders. In order to achieve the European average, the Polish ports would have to reach the capacity of handling 300 mln t of cargo per annum, and in Gdynia’s case - approx. 80 mln t. In the case of ship passenger traffic figure, it would have to rise to around 10 mln from 2.5 mln at present.

These figures are closely linked to the capacity of both port and city. In Gdynia, the ‘last mile’ problem creates considerable problems, an issue addressed recently by the Highest Chamber of Control in its report. The Red Road, which is supposed to lead the heavy traffic out of the port and constitute the axis of the future Logistic Valley, still remains in the planning stages. The roads that lead to the ports still haven’t attained the status of national roads, however - and that is according to Michał Kwiatkowski, the Head of the Department for Transport Development at the Ministry of Infrastructure - they will soon gain such status.

Article developed with Namiary na Morze i Handel magazine.

phot. T.Urbaniak/ZMPGa