Consortium of firms, headed by Czech company VHS, to repair section of highway near Jihlava

A consortium of firms, headed by Czech company VHS (Vodohospodářské stavby), has won the contract to repair and broaden a roughly seven kilometre stretch of the country’s most frequented highway, the D1 between Prague and Brno. The section of road is near Jihlava and Velký Beranov.

Illustrative photo: Petr Jansa

Repairs of the country’s D1 highway often seem endless, not least to motorists who drive from Brno to Prague, or the opposite, daily. For years, construction workers have toiled to fix sections where right lanes are so beat up by heavy trailer-trucks that taking the left is often the only realistic option. For several years now, drivers have braced themselves for long delays at peak hours (namely Fridays and Sundays) where lanes are blocked or zipped into one and what might ordinarily be a one or two hour drive instead takes three to five; the silver-lining, of course, it that at least construction is not at a standstill and that the situation is improving, if slowly.

A seven-kilometre section of the throughway near the town of Jihlava still faces repairs, which, Lidové noviny learned, will be undertaken by a consortium of firms headed by the company VHS (Vodohospodářské stavby). The consortium won the bid with an offer of 590 million crowns, 120 million less than had been estimated by the country’s Road and Motorway Directorate. The stretch of road is between the 112 and 119 kilometre and repairs there will be launched by the end of this month, the Directorate’s spokesman Jan Studecký confirmed.

Currently, five sections of the D1 are under renovation between Prague and Brno; tenders, meanwhile, are still being held for five sections more. While progress is being made, it will be some time before extensive repairs on the D1 are complete.