Poland has a fairly advanced transportation network on account of its geographical location in Central Europe. Poland has 12,178 miles of railway track, mostly in the northern and western parts of the country. However, the maximum speed on most lines is less than 100 MPH and no trains operate at speeds in excess of 124 MPH, so intercity train travel is not as fast or as reliable as it is in other European countries. There have been plans to build a high speed line connecting Warsaw, Łódź, Poznań and Wrocław, but construction has been postponed until at least 2030 due to a lack of funds.
Many cities have public transit systems of their own. Most cities have municipal bus systems. Fourteen cities (Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk, Katowice, Kraków, Łódź, Poznań, Szczecin, Warsaw and Wrocław) have tram systems ranging in size from 120 miles to 6 miles in length. The systems in Krakow and Poznań now have “fast tram” segments that have their own rights of way, separated from other traffic. Three cities (Gdynia, Lublin and Tychy) have trolleybus systems. Warsaw has the country’s only subway system.
