The audit covered eight cities: Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw, Gdansk, Poznan, Bydgoszcz, Szczecin and Lublin. It showed that inhabitants are reluctant to use public transport, as it is crowded and often obsolete.
The audit revealed that activities taken by self-governments do not keep up with exploding levels of traffic, and it is estimated that the number of vehicles in the audited cities grew from 120 to 150 percent over the last decade. In all these cities, self-governments planned to realise investments aimed at improving traffic capacity and developed ways to encourage inhabitants to use public transport. They, however, failed to do that is spite of huge financial amounts spent. In the first half of 2009, self-governments of the audited cities spent PLN 6.5 billion on transport, while in 2004-2009 - almost PLN 30 billion.
Construction of the most important investments, such as ring roads, bridges and A-roads, is delayed, although they have been planned for years. In Warsaw, in 2004-2009, there was no single bridge built, nor the construction of any A-road or ring road to connect the city’s districts was completed.
In all audited cities, public transport seems to be no alternative for passenger cars. Only in Krakow, the number of citizens using public transport grew by 50 percent, as compared to 2003. The condition of trams, which are particularly important in large agglomerations, is poor. They are old and worn out: almost 75 percent of them are over 20 years old, while the condition of tram lines has been constantly worsening.
”Park and Ride” facilities have been introduced in Warsaw and Poznan only, while modern integrated traffic management systems are being implemented in Krakow, Warsaw and Poznan, with some delays though. Only Warsaw and Krakow have several separate bus lines to facilitate public transport movement. Even bicycle lines, which are a relatively cheap but a very attractive and effective solution, have not been provided as a continuous traffic route in any of the audited cities.
In mid-2009, at least one-third of the roads managed by self-governments in five audited cities (Gdansk, Krakow, Warsaw, Szczecin, Lublin) required substantial repairs. Although funds designated for repair works have been constantly growing, self-governments are often unable to carry out repairs properly. Moreover, they frequently do not spend the money available, for example in 2008 the authorities of Lublin spent only 63 percent of the funds designated for repairs, while the authorities of Szczecin - 73 percent.
