15 January Sejm Marshal Simon Holovnia He made a decision that the presidential election would take place on 18 May. A week before the announcement of the decision on the time limit for the Holownia election – as part of the alleged presidential pre-campania – appeared in Kalisz. During the press conference held on the platform of the railway station in this number of 93 1000 inhabitants and the second largest city of Wielkopolska state criticized the plans of the Central Port of Communication.
A crazy thought to save
Simon Holovnia opposed the concept of high-speed railways in the Kalisz region. Current concept of the company CPK This is due to the fact that it assumes the delineation of by-pass, which the fast trains moving between Warsaw and Poznań can bypass Kalisz without stopping. Although any trains will be able to pull off high-speed lines, halt at Kalisz station and then return to the fast line, the Holownia nevertheless expressed concerns that it would yet turn out that fewer fast trains would slide off the high-speed line to stand in Kalisz. "Today we request to make it clear and clear that Kalisz and another sub-regional centres deserve specified rail connections," said the president of Poland 2050.
Experience from another countries has indeed shown that carriers are little willing to service those cities to which trains must exit high-speed lines. In the 70,000 inhabitants of Fulda, the high-speed way passes straight through the station existing since the 19th century – part of the InterCityExpress depots pass through it without stopping, but the city has respective tens of high-speed trains per day. The 42-thousand city of Coburg, which lies at the Berlin – Munich line, is served by links, which let InterCityExpress trains to exit high-speed lines, but only 8 of them per day.
Simon Holowna's fight to warrant high-speed connections for Kalisz may be surprising, as he was a strong opponent of the construction of railway spokes and the full concept of the Central Communication Port defined a twisted thought to be kept.
After Poland 2050 entered the government coalition, however, Hołownia began to change his head about CPK. "If Poland needs a CPK, the CPK will – said in February 2024. – I myself was highly critical of this initiative in the campaign, but I besides hear voices saying: listen, if after the beginning balance it is possible to separate this paranoia, which has grown like a cancerous growth on the thought of the CPK – this is byzantium, this propaganda, these absurdities, these broken human fates – it may turn out that this thought is to be saved.”
An obsession that doesn't exist.
Before the parliamentary elections, Poland 2050 presented the construction of high-speed railways as a threat to the maintenance and expansion of the existing railway network. In the election program, she promised: "We will bring the railway to all the towns above 10,000 inhabitants". This was to be a key subject for the Polish 2050 organization joining the government.
At the end of November 2023, as coalition talks continued, Szymon Hołownia already met with advanced school students in Krakow as the talker of the Sejm. erstwhile asked by 1 of the students about transport exclusion, the recently baked marshal stressed that railways must play a key function in solving this “very important” problem. "Our group is very involved. We want to give to it a ministry, where there is transport, a man who is an obsession with public transport and I hope that he will keep an eye on it," said Holownia.
Ultimately, no 1 from Poland 2050 was in the management of the Ministry of Infrastructure. It is 1 of the fewer resorts in which the organization of Simon Holownia did not place its man. At the same time, as many as 3 Polish 2050 denominations went to the Ministry of Climate and Environment – not only the head of the ministry Paulina Hennig-Kloska, but besides Deputy Ministers Krzysztof Bolesta and Mikołaj Dorożała.
Idiot project
Mikołaj Dorożała is simply a resident of Błaszki Municipality, located in the west of Łódź Voivodeship. “It was here, on my wife’s household plot, that we built a tiny cottage to find out that many of our neighbours are facing expropriation in the fresh CPK railway variant. I immediately became active on the side of the local community in this unequal fight against the government's megalomaniac project," said Dorożała in an interview, published in October 2023 by the Grace Online portal entitled I'm not, and I don't want to be another full-time politician.
The municipality of Blaszka is to be found in the forks of the advanced velocity lines ‘Y’. It is in this area that the spoke moving from the side of Warsaw is to branch to Poznań and Wrocław. erstwhile in September 2022 a gathering was to be held in Błaszków on the planned course of the spokes by the municipality, She was among those who did not let the representatives of CPK to enter the local cultural centre. A fewer days later, he came to Błaszek with support for his organization activist Simon Holovnia: “The inhabitants of Błaszek and many another towns in the CPK area have been protesting for months against this senseless and senseless investment of our government. We declare: we will do our best to support you in the fight for your small homeland," said the Polish organization chief 2050. "We will guarantee that this idiotic task is never implemented."
In 2023, Mikołaj Dorożała ran for MP – he competed from a territory covering the northern and western parts of the Łódź Voivodeship, that is, from an area where many municipalities are to be cut by a high-speed line. Doroża's election run was built on opposition to the Central Communication Port and the railway spokes to run to it: "I will do anything to guarantee that this task in this form is never carried out," he assured.
Dorožals failed to become an MP. In his municipality Błaszki won only 255 votes – 9 another candidates overtaken him, including 5 of Law and Justice, a organization explicitly associated with the forging of the CPK concept. The election defeat of Dorożała may have been the first signal that led Holownia to think that strong support – even in areas that are to be cut with spokes – could not be built on the strong opposition of the CPK. And to get the Holovnia to change its views on this large venture.
Although Mikołaj Doroża did not win the MP's mandate, he received a nomination for Deputy Minister of Climate and Environment. In this department, among another things, it supervises the General Directorate for Environmental Protection – an institution that makes environmental decisions for large infrastructure investments. Politician PiS Marcin Horala, who in the government of Mateusz Morawiecki was a typical of the CPK, suggested that Dorożała would influence the GDEZ to extend environmental procedures which were a condition for the construction of railway spokes.
Deputy Minister for Electromobility
The second deputy minister of climate and environment, Krzysztof Bolesta, appointed by Poland 2050, is an obsession with electromobility – he was co-founder and vice president of the Promotion of electrical Vehicles Foundation from 2018 to 2020. It is the climate and environment department that is liable for the amendment of the Electromobility Act, which requires cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants to buy zero-emission buses only.
This is simply a manifestation of a misunderstanding of sustainable mobility – it is based on collective communication providing an attractive offer that will encourage car users to change the mode of transport. Meanwhile, hard drive regulations mean higher costs for urban transport operators to buy and operate buses, the request to build a battery charging station in vehicles, and the work to set routes taking into account the location of these stations. All of this could lead to a deterioration in the transport offer, thus reducing the competitiveness of public transport towards the car and even creating situations that any passengers – in the face of reduced frequency or adverse changes in the connection network – will return to utilizing their own car – alternatively not electric.
From the point of view of sustainable mobility, frequently moving flue-gas buses – which, by the way, meet EU environmental standards present – are better than seldom moving electrical buses. The question is just how much zero-emission urban transport is at all about sustainable mobility, and how much more about the promotion of electrical vehicles.
Rail carriers are already facing zero-emission problems. In the current financial position of the European Union for the period 2021-2027, it is not possible to get a subsidy from EU funds for the acquisition of combustion trains. And trains with an alternate hydrogen or battery drive are inactive very costly and crippling technologies, requiring additional installations (e.g. point electrical battery charging devices on trains or hydrogen refuelling stations). Therefore, railway operators and operators – for years utilized to finance the acquisition of rolling stock from EU funds – face shortages of rolling stock to operate unelectrified lines, including those reactivated after years of closure.
100 minutes Holownia
In May 2024 – six months after the beginning of the current government word – the head of Poland 2050 announced the concept of the improvement of regional railways: "The improvement goal to meet Polish needs and ambitions is Poland, let's call it, a hundred-minute drive from all city of the voivodship to the regional capital by public transport in a maximum of 100 minutes".
The concept of the Polish 100-minute Hołownia has been included in the broader plan of the polycentric improvement of the country, as a consequence of which more than half of the gross home product is to be created outside the capitals of voivodships. fast rail connections are indeed an crucial origin in the improvement of tiny and medium-sized cities and agrarian areas. However, in order to supply infrastructure for the multi-centre improvement of the country, it is essential to guarantee not only connections to the capitals of voivodships, but besides the good links between another centres.
The intention to guarantee access to the regional capital in up to 100 minutes – which does not take into account the different sizes of Polish voivodships – is to keep the existing reasoning on regional rail networks. reasoning based on the division of the centre-periphery – the precedence is to guarantee fast access from the periphery to the regional capital, and another episodes stay neglected or abandoned.
This problem can be seen, for example, in the Opole Voivodeship, where lines leading to Opole from the 3 largest cities of the region have undergone modernisations, but already routes straight connecting the second, 3rd and 4th most populous cities of the region (Kędzierzyn-Koźle – Nysa and Nysa – Brzeg lines) have been looking forward to renovations for years. Between Kędzierzyn-Koźlem and Nysa, the bridge was inactive not even repaired by flooding in 1997, thus limiting the bandwidth of this line. In turn, between Nysa and Brzeg the maximum velocity is only 70 km/h, and due to the mediocre method condition of the track trains on long sections must slow down to 20-30 km/h. Repairs and modernisations of these lines, as not leading to the regional capital, fall out of subsequent plans.
Metropolitan bedrooms?
The concept of a hundred-minute Polish concept is simply a fresh installment – and at the same time an effort to sustain – Poland's 2050 run before the parliamentary elections: bringing the railway to all towns above 10 1000 inhabitants.
Ultimately, at the phase of the coalition arrangements, this precise promise went to a general declaration. The coalition agreement concluded in November 2023 between the civilian Coalition, the Left, the Polish People's organization and Poland 2050 states: "The coalition will actively support the process of restoring bus connections and developing railway networks to halt and reverse negative trends in this regard".
In the years preceding the change of government almost all year, respective cities of at least 10,000 inhabitants returned to the map of railway connections: in 2019 trains returned to Lubin, Bielawa, and Wschowa, in 2021 to Mielec and Koński, and in 2022 to Gubin and Krosna Odrzański. In addition, the implementation of the Railway Plus programme, aimed at restoring railway communication between cities above 10 000 and the capitals of voivodships, began in 2022. Incidentally, in the coalition agreement it would be fairer to keep and accelerate affirmative trends in the reactivation of railway lines.
The Plus Railway is another programme aimed at ensuring access to the capitals of voivodships – it was 1 of the criteria for selecting projects submitted by local governments. As a result, the Leszno – Gostyń – Jarocin line inactive in passenger traffic since 2011 is to be reactivated only on the section from Leszno to Gostynia. According to the requirements of the Railway Plus programme, the focus was on restoring the connection between the 20,000 Gostyń and the bus leading from Leszno to Poznań, without reasoning about revitalizing the full line connecting all neighbouring supra-local centres, Leszno, Gostyń and Jarocin, providing access to them from all municipalities that are inactive inactive.
The deficiency of inclusion in the programme of the Railway Plus section between Gostyń and Jarocin is besides a deficiency of looking at the network aspect of the railway. Jarocin is simply a node station where passengers from Gostynia could decision towards Gniezno, Wednesday Wielkopolski, Ostrow Wielkopolski or Kalisz. In the polycentric improvement of Poland, 1 cannot focus only on relations to and from the capitals of voivodships, but besides to guarantee the connection of another centres among themselves.
“Poland based on 5 or 7 major metropolises is simply a recipe for disaster: demographic, economical and truly civilizational. In order to be safe, Poland must build on many pillars and do not request to invent and artificially make these pillars. specified pillars are even urban centres specified as Kalisz, specified as Wałbrzych, specified as Płock," said Szymon Hołownia at the Kalisz railway station. “You don’t want Kalisz to lose another 10,000 inhabitants, just like he has lost in the last 8 years, you gotta give people a chance to work wherever they want, learn where they want, and live here, pay taxes, lead children to schools and kindergartens.
In a country of polycentric development, specified a city as Kalisz, or a centre of almost 100,000, should be an attractive place to live, work and learn, and to scope work from close cities and villages, and not primarily the bedroom of Poznań, to which kalashanie, after escorting the children to schools and kindergartens, run high-speed railways. On the another hand, high-speed rail connections with Poznań, Łódź or Warsaw can be a origin in the location of fresh jobs in Kalisz. You can be actively active in this, already present by placing in Kalisz and another cities of this size the office of central offices, which in Warsaw are no longer located and gotta rent offices in commercial skyscrapers.
