S69 Expressway (now S1) Bielsko-Biała – Żywiec – Zwardoń

A mountain expressway corridor connecting Bielsko-Biała with the border crossing to Slovakia at Zwardoń, built in stages by the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways (GDDKiA) from 2002 and forming part of Pan-European Transport Corridor VI and a priority TEN-T network project (the Gdańsk – Brno/Bratislava – Vienna route). Construction began in 2002 with the Zwardoń – Myto section (1.4 km, works value over PLN 50 million, contract signed 15.11.2002, opened 22.12.2004). Subsequent sections opened were: Milówka – Szare (2.9 km, PLN 99.3 million, contract signed 30.06.2004, opened 14.11.2006, with a 600 m viaduct), sections in the Żywiec area (Żywiec Soła – Browar and Browar – Przybędza), Laliki – Zwardoń (1.8 km, PLN 55.5 million, contract signed 12.06.2007, opened 28.12.2008), and Szare – Laliki (4.7 km, contract value PLN 395.1 million / over PLN 413 million, contract signed 26.10.2007, opened 18.11.2009), where Poland's first non-urban road tunnel, 678 m long, was built. The longest and most expensive section, Bielsko-Biała (Mikuszowice interchange) – Żywiec, 15.56 km long, had a total project value of PLN 1,184,240,154.28 (EU co-financing of PLN 721,179,696.74); the original contract with the Polimex-Mostostal consortium (PLN 645.98 million net, contract signed 20.07.2010) was terminated on 31.12.2013, and completion of the works, worth PLN 212.13 million net (contract signed 02.07.2014), was entrusted to Mota-Engil Central Europe. The section was opened in two stages: 6.15 km on 06.11.2014 and 9.41 km on 24.07.2015. Under a Council of Ministers regulation of 19 May 2016, the S69 road from Bielsko-Biała to Zwardoń became the S1 expressway. The cost figure in this record (PLN 1,184.24 million) corresponds to the largest section for which the source gives a single, unified figure, Mikuszowice – Żywiec; the sources do not give a single total cost for the whole corridor, whose combined scale exceeds PLN 1.9 billion. The last gap in the corridor, the 8.5 km Węgierska Górka bypass (the Przybędza – Milówka section), was built separately and was not opened to traffic until October 2025 (recorded as a separate entry; its cost is not counted in this record).