If I remember correctly the reasoning behind the way they did it this way was something about much easier and faster paperwork. We have extremely stupid construction laws in this country and every NIMBY idiot can stop any construction for years. But yeah, they should have done it with 6 lanes, I'm driving it regularly few times every month and the the traffic is usually pretty big, especially around Brno where there are only 4 lanes and the crossings in Brno with D52 (to Vienna) and D2 (to Bratislava) cause pretty much every day large traffic jams. They already started project to make it make it in 6 lanes but who knows when they finish...
The Měřín reserve military runway is part of the highway D1. It starts at 22:32 in the video. The center panels can be removed to create a runway of 2100 x 25.5 meters...
As someone who grew up in the 1980s, and saw the German-Czechoslovakian border back then, it's just fabulous to see that these so-called former eastern bloc countries are accessible now. It's just part of the wider European road system, and the only hint that you're entering a different country is a blue sign with twelve stars. Yes, it's been over 30 years, but it's hard to forget the excitement of 1989. Like the owner of this channel I'm Dutch, and I moved to Malta at the end of 2000. Malta, together with Czechia and eight other countries, joined the EU in 2004, and the transformation has been remarkable. Whereas people would drive very old cars from the 1970s as their daily drive, now the cars are like the ones in this video. GDP per capita is very close to that of Italy, and higher than that of Spain. And there are loads of foreigners now (including myself, obviously). Oddly enough, though, while I've worked and interacted with people from all over Europe, never a Czech.
Hi! I grew up in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 80, so I remember the changes very well🙂 The real change has come with the new generations - my generation is still mentally affected by the old regime even now, more than a quarter century later, but if you talk to Czech teenagers today about how things used to be before 1990, they look at you like it's complete sci-fi😄 I'll still swap our sketchy Czech motorways for Dutch ones though, if you're ready to make a deal! (And our Czech weather for Maltese weather too...)
What was it like living in the Eastern Bloc and Warsaw Pact back in the Cold War? I know they were under communism, and some people tried to cross the Iron Curtain to seek freedom. Also, what was it like seeing the friendly Czechoslovakia-East Germany border and the Iron Curtain bordering West Germany and Austria?
@@CrystalClearWith8BE A Russian, whom I used to work with, claimed that it wasn't all that bad. All the other friends and colleagues from the "eastern bloc" hated the communists in varying degrees. Especially the Hungarian had a lot of resentment. But that's how I perceived their experience, so take it with a grain of salt.
Thanks for the Journey and music! Enjoyed! I have to add that I took the same motorway in early spring of '22. On my way from Germany to Austria (D8-D1). Maybe I have mistaken something, but the max. speed on the motorway was like 120 km/h. I remember that I was very frustrated because cruising at the max. legally allowed speed there were a lot of cars behind me that wanted to overtake me. The thing is that the right lane at that speed is not useful and is really annoying, you have to brake every few seconds from 120-130 to 80-90 km/h and then wait for a free spot to use the left lane and overtake the trucks. The Czech drivers drive about 10-50 km/h faster than is allowed. Keep the nice videos coming!
In 1990, just after the Velvet Revolution, I took a bus trip along the then D1 from Prague to Brno, where a university friend of mine was studying at the university. Two years later I drove the same road to attend that friend's wedding in Brno as well. There was a bit less traffic then...
23:55 The highest bridge on D1 with 77,5 m tall. Built between 1972-78. During the overhall of highway was also expanded. Because it's a twin bridge, the gap between was reduced.
Beautiful surroundings! In PL we build super motorways now, but not so beautiful due to sound-walls :( hope that there will be road some motorway day from Brno-Mikulov and to Wroclaw. And finishing D1 north of Brno, please....
Been driving that route on my way to Serbia the past few years. Really impressed. This year however i will perhaps see the motorway from the airplane window. 🙂
One thing that amazes me about European motorways is the sheer number of convenience stops provided. In Ontario where I live, you'd rarely see such a frequency of those types of locations on Highways 401 or 400, never mind that they aren't at all present on the Queen Elizabeth Way (which ends in my hometown of Fort Erie).
Most of Europe doesn't have truck stops at exits like you can find in North America, so these rest areas with services directly along the motorway is often the only place to park and get fuel. However the truck stop concept does exist in some countries, like Germany, Spain and Scandinavia. And sporadically elsewhere.
Your battery ran out just where we live, only about 27km from Brno and the altitude drops about 200m. The temperature is usually about 3 to 4 degrees higher in Brno.
Chapeau bas for that overhaul. Hope the next overhaul will remove that old-school right merging of slow lanes - the optimal solution would be when the left lane merges with that middle one, so the lorries would drive happily on their lane, and the cars would merge more safely at lower speed differences. I saw it in France, and it works fine.
Epic trip and video was this one - thank you. Everything looked so green and lush. I also wonder what car you drive? If it’s the same one, it must have done a huge amount of Mileage (KM)!
22:32-22:59 backup airfield (planned for the situation when regular airfields were already bombed during WW3). Used twice for military excercise in 1980s. ua-cam.com/video/FDoZGoaG9_w/v-deo.html
Zauważcie, że ta autostrada ma takie same nachylenie aż po horyzont i znakomite oznakowanie. Pozazdrościć Czechom racjonalnego myślenia i dobrego projektowania.
happened to be driving this highway before the renovation and was surprised that it didn't include widening up to 3 lanes each way. I consider these free lanes ending more than once even before the top of the hill as not a practical and dangerous solution.
This highway will have 3+3 lanes only in some places (mainly around larger cities), otherwise expansion is not planned in the near future. Reconstruction was necessary, it was needed as soon as possible, the highway was in very bad condition, it would take many years to get permission to widen this highway. Its very difficult to get permission here, usually it is delayed by a lot of lawsuits thanks to which it can take up to decades (for example, the last missing part of D1, where getting permission took from 80/90s until 2022 when construction started). "Northern alternative" is planned for the D1, its D11 + D35, which connects back to the D1 near Lipník nad Bečvou. Most parts of D35 are currently under construction or will start this year, with the last pieces starting in 2025, it should be completed in 2028-2029. There is also D0 near Prague, which will connect D1 to D11, construction should start this year.
Excellent video and for a German and Austrian Lorry Driver people simply refer to the two endpoints of the Motorway as Prag & Brünn because the Czech Republic got controlled by Austria from 1500s-1918. Which was Böhmisch-Mähren. Czech Motorway exits are Km based like a Spanish Autovia Austria-Hungary Autobahn/Autoplaya North America Canadian 400 series & Autoroutes Québécois.
I guess the Praha-Brno stretch will get six lanes but no hopes thaat it will happen in the next 10-15 years. Unfortunately Czech Rep struggles to complete D1, not to mention D52 to Vienna or D11 to Poland. :p
"Northern highway" - set of several different highways should be finished by 2030, unless something will happen, and it will take significant load from D1. If you are referring to the issues near Přerov, well the construction should start soon or maybe it had already started. Now there should be some widening to 6 lanes going on near Brno, but it basically is just extension of slip roads between two cloverleaf interchanges. The D52 is basically just testament to idiocy of planners. They made a mistake, then spent 20 years battling with ecoactivists, and then they came with proposal that looked like some bad render from PS1 game or by somebody learning Blender - our own rendition of Oversea Highway. It will take some time before that is done.
The Internet has shortened our attention span so I really appreciate videos with constant commentary like this one.
ETS 3 looks awesome!
Great video, really enjoyed the trip and the soundtrack. The D1 feels quite a narrow motorway considering spending 10 years rebuilding it.
If I remember correctly the reasoning behind the way they did it this way was something about much easier and faster paperwork. We have extremely stupid construction laws in this country and every NIMBY idiot can stop any construction for years. But yeah, they should have done it with 6 lanes, I'm driving it regularly few times every month and the the traffic is usually pretty big, especially around Brno where there are only 4 lanes and the crossings in Brno with D52 (to Vienna) and D2 (to Bratislava) cause pretty much every day large traffic jams. They already started project to make it make it in 6 lanes but who knows when they finish...
The Měřín reserve military runway is part of the highway D1. It starts at 22:32 in the video. The center panels can be removed to create a runway of 2100 x 25.5 meters...
As someone who grew up in the 1980s, and saw the German-Czechoslovakian border back then, it's just fabulous to see that these so-called former eastern bloc countries are accessible now. It's just part of the wider European road system, and the only hint that you're entering a different country is a blue sign with twelve stars. Yes, it's been over 30 years, but it's hard to forget the excitement of 1989.
Like the owner of this channel I'm Dutch, and I moved to Malta at the end of 2000. Malta, together with Czechia and eight other countries, joined the EU in 2004, and the transformation has been remarkable. Whereas people would drive very old cars from the 1970s as their daily drive, now the cars are like the ones in this video. GDP per capita is very close to that of Italy, and higher than that of Spain. And there are loads of foreigners now (including myself, obviously).
Oddly enough, though, while I've worked and interacted with people from all over Europe, never a Czech.
Hi! I grew up in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 80, so I remember the changes very well🙂 The real change has come with the new generations - my generation is still mentally affected by the old regime even now, more than a quarter century later, but if you talk to Czech teenagers today about how things used to be before 1990, they look at you like it's complete sci-fi😄 I'll still swap our sketchy Czech motorways for Dutch ones though, if you're ready to make a deal! (And our Czech weather for Maltese weather too...)
What was it like living in the Eastern Bloc and Warsaw Pact back in the Cold War? I know they were under communism, and some people tried to cross the Iron Curtain to seek freedom. Also, what was it like seeing the friendly Czechoslovakia-East Germany border and the Iron Curtain bordering West Germany and Austria?
@@CrystalClearWith8BE A Russian, whom I used to work with, claimed that it wasn't all that bad. All the other friends and colleagues from the "eastern bloc" hated the communists in varying degrees. Especially the Hungarian had a lot of resentment. But that's how I perceived their experience, so take it with a grain of salt.
@@SeverityOne Yeah don't ever talk to the older Romanian generation about the Communist regime unless you want to hear them venting all night.
Thanks for the Journey and music! Enjoyed!
I have to add that I took the same motorway in early spring of '22. On my way from Germany to Austria (D8-D1). Maybe I have mistaken something, but the max. speed on the motorway was like 120 km/h. I remember that I was very frustrated because cruising at the max. legally allowed speed there were a lot of cars behind me that wanted to overtake me. The thing is that the right lane at that speed is not useful and is really annoying, you have to brake every few seconds from 120-130 to 80-90 km/h and then wait for a free spot to use the left lane and overtake the trucks.
The Czech drivers drive about 10-50 km/h faster than is allowed.
Keep the nice videos coming!
In 1990, just after the Velvet Revolution, I took a bus trip along the then D1 from Prague to Brno, where a university friend of mine was studying at the university. Two years later I drove the same road to attend that friend's wedding in Brno as well. There was a bit less traffic then...
It was fun to Czech out this video!
What a beautiful long drive!
23:55 The highest bridge on D1 with 77,5 m tall. Built between 1972-78. During the overhall of highway was also expanded. Because it's a twin bridge, the gap between was reduced.
Super vidéo, j'ai apprécié le voyage et la bande originale et je me suis abonné
Beautiful surroundings! In PL we build super motorways now, but not so beautiful due to sound-walls :( hope that there will be road some motorway day from Brno-Mikulov and to Wroclaw. And finishing D1 north of Brno, please....
Been driving that route on my way to Serbia the past few years. Really impressed. This year however i will perhaps see the motorway from the airplane window. 🙂
One thing that amazes me about European motorways is the sheer number of convenience stops provided. In Ontario where I live, you'd rarely see such a frequency of those types of locations on Highways 401 or 400, never mind that they aren't at all present on the Queen Elizabeth Way (which ends in my hometown of Fort Erie).
Most of Europe doesn't have truck stops at exits like you can find in North America, so these rest areas with services directly along the motorway is often the only place to park and get fuel. However the truck stop concept does exist in some countries, like Germany, Spain and Scandinavia. And sporadically elsewhere.
@@EuropeanRoads Ah, I see. Have you ever driven in North America, BTW?
Nice that the Czechs were able to keep the grass median between the carriageways.
17:56 Actually Elbe is a tributary of Vltava, just it gives name to resulting river.
nice video! Beautiful road and beautiful landscape 😊
Is it all toll roads?
Your battery ran out just where we live, only about 27km from Brno and the altitude drops about 200m. The temperature is usually about 3 to 4 degrees higher in Brno.
I drove from Prague to Brno in exactly 1 hour and 6 minutes. It is some 207 km. It's true that I drove a little faster, but it was a nice ride
How do you get the signs in full HD??
Chapeau bas for that overhaul. Hope the next overhaul will remove that old-school right merging of slow lanes - the optimal solution would be when the left lane merges with that middle one, so the lorries would drive happily on their lane, and the cars would merge more safely at lower speed differences. I saw it in France, and it works fine.
Epic trip and video was this one - thank you. Everything looked so green and lush. I also wonder what car you drive? If it’s the same one, it must have done a huge amount of Mileage (KM)!
Way better roads than in America!
22:32-22:59 backup airfield (planned for the situation when regular airfields were already bombed during WW3). Used twice for military excercise in 1980s. ua-cam.com/video/FDoZGoaG9_w/v-deo.html
Prague and Brno are two of the most important big cities in the Czech Republic as you can see on the map.
But Ostrava is third most important and industrial city in Czech Republic
Zauważcie, że ta autostrada ma takie same nachylenie aż po horyzont i znakomite oznakowanie. Pozazdrościć Czechom racjonalnego myślenia i dobrego projektowania.
I wonder if your videos are used to train ADAS' neural nets
happened to be driving this highway before the renovation and was surprised that it didn't include widening up to 3 lanes each way. I consider these free lanes ending more than once even before the top of the hill as not a practical and dangerous solution.
This highway will have 3+3 lanes only in some places (mainly around larger cities), otherwise expansion is not planned in the near future. Reconstruction was necessary, it was needed as soon as possible, the highway was in very bad condition, it would take many years to get permission to widen this highway. Its very difficult to get permission here, usually it is delayed by a lot of lawsuits thanks to which it can take up to decades (for example, the last missing part of D1, where getting permission took from 80/90s until 2022 when construction started). "Northern alternative" is planned for the D1, its D11 + D35, which connects back to the D1 near Lipník nad Bečvou. Most parts of D35 are currently under construction or will start this year, with the last pieces starting in 2025, it should be completed in 2028-2029. There is also D0 near Prague, which will connect D1 to D11, construction should start this year.
Czech Republic👍🇨🇿🇪🇺
Which car do you drive?
Bonita Ruta 👍
4k please.
Excellent video and for a German and Austrian Lorry Driver people simply refer to the two endpoints of the Motorway as Prag & Brünn because the Czech Republic got controlled by Austria from 1500s-1918. Which was Böhmisch-Mähren. Czech Motorway exits are Km based like a Spanish Autovia Austria-Hungary Autobahn/Autoplaya North America Canadian 400 series & Autoroutes Québécois.
There is a song about driving this highway: ua-cam.com/video/_Kzvt6gXmgg/v-deo.html
There were more than 1800 km of motorways in the GDR. How can the Czechoslovakian network of 850 km be the largest then?
per capita
@@MrMajsterixx 16 millions in the GDR versus 15 millions in Czechoslovakia don't make much of a difference in terms of per capita ratios.
@@flierfy aight it was honestly just a fast guess, people mistaken these quite often
And HOW could GDR just join the EU without ANY process and ANY rules, that were required for ALL the others to join? 🤔
I guess the Praha-Brno stretch will get six lanes but no hopes thaat it will happen in the next 10-15 years. Unfortunately Czech Rep struggles to complete D1, not to mention D52 to Vienna or D11 to Poland. :p
It desperately needs to be widened to 6 lanes the D1
It also desperately needs finishing D35 in the north as a concurent way between Prague - Ostrava which will take some load from this one.
"Northern highway" - set of several different highways should be finished by 2030, unless something will happen, and it will take significant load from D1.
If you are referring to the issues near Přerov, well the construction should start soon or maybe it had already started. Now there should be some widening to 6 lanes going on near Brno, but it basically is just extension of slip roads between two cloverleaf interchanges.
The D52 is basically just testament to idiocy of planners. They made a mistake, then spent 20 years battling with ecoactivists, and then they came with proposal that looked like some bad render from PS1 game or by somebody learning Blender - our own rendition of Oversea Highway. It will take some time before that is done.
Ťokův průsmyk! The only highway that stopped US Army. 😀
:😊
D1 is the longest dirt road in the world. Unfortunately, even after the reconstruction.