Expressway S6 (Poland)

Expressway S6 (in Polish droga ekspresowa S6) is a Polish highway which has been planned to run from the A6 autostrada near Szczecin, through Goleniów in West Pomerania to Gdańsk, parallel to the Baltic coast, forming the main connection between Gdańsk and Szczecin.

As of 2024, the sections from Szczecin to Koszalin (including the Koszalin bypass) and from Bożepole Wielkie to Gdańsk are open. The remaining part from Koszalin to Bożepole Wielkie is under construction, which includes adding the second carriageway to the existing single-carriageway bypass of Słupsk.

Upon completion of the ongoing contracts, scheduled for late 2025, A6/S6 will be open on its entire intended route from the German border to Gdańsk. Later, a new route of S6 will be constructed to form the western bypass of Szczecin, providing a parallel alternative to the existing route of A6 and S6 south-east of Szczecin.

History
After World War I, the German HaFraBa association had already set up plans to build an Autobahn along the route from Berlin through the Polish Corridor, to the Free City of Danzig and East Prussia (today informally known as Berlinka). The construction was pushed by the Nazi authorities after 1933 as an extraterritorial Reichsautobahn across the Polish Corridor of prewar Poland further south than the modern S6 freeway has been planned for, but the road was never completed.

The first section of S6 built was the Obwodnica Trójmiejska (Tricity Bypass) from Gdańsk to Gdynia, which is 38.6 km long, followed by the section between Szczecin and Goleniów, both in the 1970s. The next part of S6 to be opened was  16.3 km bypass of Słupsk that was completed in October 2010. The bypass of Nowogard was completed in December 2011, with the rest of the section between Szczecin and Koszalin open by 2019.

In July 2010, the route between Goleniów and Słupsk was finalised. It will be about 180 km long and pass just south of Kołobrzeg and then north of Koszalin. The road will be a dual carriageway, with 27 interchanges and 130 viaducts, with about 20% of it overlapping the current route of National Road 6 (DK6). Doubts about financing made construction not expected to start before 2020, but the schedule was later accelerated. The tenders for design-build contracts on the section between Goleniów and Koszalin were announced in August 2014, with expected completion around 2018.