A ceremony of signing a declaration between Ukraine and Poland to build a wide-gauge rail track to Lviv was held in Lviv Apr. 21. According to ZIK,the declaration was signed by Lviv oblast governor, city mayor, Poland Pidkarpattya region governor, deputy mayors of Wroclaw and Krakow, the ZIK correspondent reports.
Accordingly, Poland and Ukraine will build a 1,435-mm wide track from Przemysl in Poland to Lviv as part of the Pan-European transport corridor III Dresden-Wroclaw-Krakow-Lviv.
Both parties agreed to push for the project implementation at the intergovernmental level of cooperation between Kyiv and Warsaw.
Meanwhile, Lviv Mayor Sadovyj says the project will cost 400 million euro, or the cost of 4 giant supermarkets. “We were in talks with Ukraine transport ministry and got the green light – on condition the funding comes from private investors. How much is it? Just the cost of building 4 hypermarkets,” the mayor said Apr. 21.
According to Sadovyj, the Polish part of the project will be 75% funded by the EU. ”We expect the EU to share the costs of building the Ukrainian stretch,” he noted.
Trains along the eurotrack go at speeds of up to 160 km/h. According to Lviv mayor, the company involved in designing eurotrack railways in Poland will be hired to do the same in Ukraine.
By late 2008, experts will finish their report evaluating attractiveness of the project to investors and start the design stage.
