Construction delays on D1 cause traffic collapse

Traffic from Prague to Brno clogged up on Thursday along the D1 motorway as snow removal was complicated by a 14 kilometer stretch of road that's still under reconstruction. The work was supposed to be completed long before winter for precisely this reason, but the Kazakhstan contractor SP Sine Midas Story is behind on the job. The Minister of Transport Dan Ťok demanded that the work be completed by Monday, but this looks unlikely. Defects in the completed work (literally sub-surface holes) make it impossible to allow cars to drive on the new surface. Concerns arose as early as the summer that the contractor was behind schedule but the company convinced the Czech Highway Authority that it would make up the time. SP Sine Midas Story won the tender for this long stretch of road by offering CZK 300m less than the designers who prepared the project estimated would be needed.