Expressway S8 or express road S8, officially named The Route of the Heroes of the Battle of Warsaw 1920 (pl. droga ekspresowa S8, Trasa Bohaterów Bitwy Warszawskiej 1920 r.) is a Polish highway which connects Wrocà Âaw via à Âódà º and Warsaw to Biaà Âystok. The whole road is long. Its fragment forming the bypass of Wrocà Âaw (22.7 km) is constructed in motorway standard and marked as A8.
The road was constructed between 2008 and 2019 (short fragments serving as town bypasses had been constructed earlier). The construction was co-funded by the European Union.
In 2019, it was announced that an extension of S8 from Wrocà Âaw to Kà Âodzko was added to the plans. Its main part is planned to be opened by 2028. In 2022, it was announced that there are plans for extending the road further from Kà Âodzko to the Polish-Czech border in Boboszów which is intended to be constructed by 2033, however in the Czech Republic there is so far no planned expressway that would connect to it.
S8 runs through Warsaw and is part of its network of bypass roads. Various fragments were completed between 2010 and 2015. It was constructed mostly as an upgrade of the city's existing inner highways. As such, it might be considered not to fully meet the definition of a bypass as it serves both the transit and local district traffic at the same time. In effect, large traffic jams form on this section every day in the peak hours. In the most recent general traffic measurement conducted in 2020 and 2021, S8 in Warsaw recorded the annual average daily traffic of 198'000 vehicles, making it the most busy highway section in Poland.
During rush hours (7-10 and 16âÂÂ20), the road is closed for truck drivers, who have to bypass the city area through expressway S2 and road 50 (south-east of Warsaw), or through roads 50 and 62 (north-west of Warsaw).
Originally, S8 was planned to continue from Biaà Âystok to the border with Lithuania. In 2009, the plans were changed and instead S61 now branches off S8 and follows a more direct route to the border. S61 and the section of S8 from Warsaw to the S61's starting point serve as part of Via Baltica.