Tczew - POLAND

The city of Tczew inhabited by over 60 thousand people, is the fourth largest city of the Pomerania region, after Gdansk, Gdynia and Slupsk. It is a city rich in historical heritage and a bright vision of its future, based on the revitalization of the Vistula river waterfront. The city may be readily considered as a “city of bridges”: there are as many as 20 of them, with two bridges crossing the Vistula river - real masterpieces of 19th and 20th century engineering skills.

The city of Tczew is the most important hub of railway commuter traffic in Northern Poland, linking all railway connections coming from all parts of the country with the Gdansk agglomeration inhabited by nearly 1.5 M people. The Tczew railway station with a local and regional bus terminal located nearby is frequented by some 20 thousand people a day, usually commuting to Gdansk to work or study there.

Its importance as a transport hub is enhanced with the connection of the A1 (“Amber”) Motorway passing nearby. The city hopes to become an important house boating destination thanks to the construction of a modern river harbor and further development plans concerning the establishment of a special economic zone.

The city has also a very compact character, expressed in very high density of population (over 2,700 inhabitants per km2) and the built-up area. The most distant points of the residential network are not located more than 5 km from one another and no point of the city is located more than 3.5 km from the railway station. The location of Tczew inspired the city promotion officers to adopt a logo claiming that “From Tczew - it is close to anywhere”. Since Gdansk and northern Poland belong to the most popular holiday destination in Poland, some 3 million visitors add to the car traffic channels passing through or very near Tczew every summer.

In 2010 the city is going to celebrate its 750th anniversary, and a rich programme of various outdoor and indoor cultural events is planned within the framework of the celebrations. In mid May 2010 a conference about cycling tourism is going to be held together with the Annual General Meeting of the European Cyclists’ Federation.