An unusual linear park is being built in Ursynów , above the tunnel in which the Warsaw Southern Ring Road runs, which is expected to be the largest rooftop garden in Poland when completed. The premise, stretching over 2 kilometers, will replace the lawn overgrowing the concrete ceiling of the S2 expressway tunnel. In early September, the third section of the unusual park in Ursynów was made available. Two more are waiting to be dedicated, although their concepts are not to everyone's liking. Would residents prefer a parking lot?
For decades, a strip of vacant space along Filipina Plaskowicka Street grew lawn, with single trees on it, sharing the area with a market and numerous parking lots. For several years, the area, which was a foreground of Kabaty Forest, turned into a construction site. And then the lawn and parking lots returned, only that with a tunnel underneath. Now the city is implementing an ambitious project at the site, the result of public consultations and design work carried out by Palmett. Divided into 6 phases, the construction of a linear park of more than 12 hectares, where thousands of new plants will grow , is already halfway through. The cost of the works exceeds 40 million zlotys.
Linear park over the tunnel of Warsaw's Southern Ring Road in Ursyoniv
Photo: Krzysztof Babicki © ZZW
park in six pieces
Since work began on the largest rooftop garden in Poland, two of the five planned (and one reserve) stages have already been opened to residents. The first, located between Stryjeńskich and Waga Brothers streets, was opened on April 16, 2025. The next, located between Wagon Brothers Street and National Education Commission Avenue, opened a week later.
Linear park over the tunnel of Warsaw's southern ring road in Ursyonw
Photo: Krzysztof Babicki © ZZW
As part of the metamorphosis of these places, a lot of new plantings have appeared - these include regular lawns, as well as perennials and even flower meadows. In the future, shade will be provided by new trees, of which more than 300 have arrived in the first two phases. The way greenery is managed varies depending on the function to be performed by a given section of the linear park. The part handed over earliest is definitely greener - there are a lot of shrubs, trees and winding paths between them, including a bicycle path and a promenade with a yellow ribbon that is to run the length of the entire park, uniting the establishment.
Linear park over the tunnel of Warsaw's southern ring road in Ursyoniv
Photo: Krzysztof Babicki © ZZW
In the next stage, a space with a decidedly more open character was created. A large rain garden of about 350 square meters was created, with wooden, water-permeable platforms running through it, designed on the basis of a honeycomb structure. One of the squares also has room for a monumental statue of a golden bear, a symbol of Ursynów (which links it not only to the figure of Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, but also to the Latin sound of the name "bear"). The huge sculpture is a part of a larger playground; children can climb on it, and after climbing to the top - go down the slide. The four-meter-high statue was made of wood, specially commissioned in Denmark at a cost of - a bagatelle - one million zlotys.
Linear park over the tunnel of Warsaw's Southern Ring Road in Ursynów
Photo: Krzysztof Babicki © ZZW
Soothe the senses over the expressway
The latest, the third section, was handed over to residents in early September 2025. It is one of the most exciting elements of the linear park above the tunnel of the Warsaw Southern Ring Road. Its main element is a sensory park:
The main attraction of this section is a sensory garden where, regardless of the seasons, we will relax among colors, flowers, scents and the hum of grasses. We have chosen contrasting plant species that simultaneously complement each other. Of particular note are two raised beds with yarrows, garlics, anemones, orchids, bellflowers, spurge, foxgloves, coneflowers, geraniums, lilies, sages, mulleins, verbenas, ferns and other species of perennials and ornamental grasses. The garden of senses is located adjacent to a small square, where one can relax at tables and chairs
- writes the Warsaw Greenery Board.
In addition to the sensory garden, there were, of course, new trees, including numerous fruit trees. A total of more than 150 have been planted, in addition to several thousand shrubs and perennials. There are, of course, pedestrian paths running through the whole, including another section with a yellow ribbon that will eventually connect all sections of the park.
The next stages of the linear park in Warsaw
In addition to the fragment just handed over, two more stages of the linear park over POW await access - one located between Lanciego and J. Rosol streets, where ZZW plans to create a plaza with picnic tables and an orchard, and the last, stretching from J. Rosol street to Nowoursynkowska street. There, the city plans to change the geometry of the existing embankment and build a shelter in the form of a circular pergola from which the entire establishment can be observed. This stage will have to wait until early next year. When completed, the park, which covers an area of more than 12 hectares, will feature a total of one thousand new trees and one hundred thousand low plantings, as well as 300 pieces of landscaping.
Buildings for the management center of the Warsaw Southern Ring Road tunnel
Photo: Panek © CC BY SA 4.0 | Wikimedia Commons
a box full of shame
The new linear park, though not yet completed, is already facing some problems. News portals feature photographs showing technical boxes, which are the aesthetic bane of Warsaw and many other Polish cities. In the case of the capital's linear park, the metal boxes are located right next to the paths - it will probably be a long time before they get lost in the greenery growing around them. As Bartlomiej Gasparski, a designer from the Palmett company responsible for the linear park above the POW tunnel, explained in an interview with the local portal Halo Ursynów, the preservation of the boxes was necessary - they house the tunnel's vibration sensors, and their maintenance does not depend on the Warsaw Greenery Board.
A park instead of a parking lot?
A bigger problem, at least if the scale of the publicity were to suggest it, seems to be the issue of parking spaces. Even before the POW tunnel was built on the stretches of vacant space between Ursynów's apartment blocks, in addition to lawns, markets and parks, a significant portion of its area was occupied by parking lots. After the tunnel was completed, surface parking lots returned to this place at a cost of several million zlotys. As it turned out, however - not for long.
According to the plan to build the next stage of the park over the S2 expressway tunnel, a part of it would be created on a section of the parking lot built at the level of the Kazury estate. As a result of the park's construction, the number of parking spaces would decrease from 300 to 200. According to some estimates, the number of spaces lost could be as high as 155, which, according to some residents of the nearby estate, will negatively affect traffic organization in the area. The Kazury estate was built in the 70s. The Kazury estate was built in the 1970s - there are no underground parking lots there, and over the 50 years that have passed since the construction was completed, the number of cars per capita has increased significantly. Initially, the plan was to leave the parking lot in place - but now the Warsaw authorities are talking about a compromise between leaving some parking spaces and maintaining the proper width of the linear park.
Outlet of the tunnel of the Warsaw Southern Ring Road from the western side
Photo: Emptywords © CC BY SA 4.0 | Wikimedia Commons
Opponents of shrinking the parking lot are relentless - they have already sent an open letter to Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, and are planning a protest in the afternoon of September 18, 2025, in which they will block the traffic circle at the intersection of Plaskowicka and Stryjeńskich streets (where, incidentally, there are quite a few parking spaces).
Construction of the tunnel of the Warsaw Southern Ring Road
Photo: Adrian Grycuk © CC BY-SA 3.0pl | Wikimedia Commons
Park over the longest tunnel in Poland
Poland's longest tunnel, running 2.3 kilometers, is located on the S2 expressway, which is part of Warsaw's Southern Ring Road in this section. An ordinary highway was originally planned for this location, but since the decision was made to locate the bypass here, the surrounding residential development has become much denser. Conducting such a busy road along Filipina Plaskowicka Street, in the immediate vicinity of residential areas, aroused strong opposition from residents, community activists and pro-environmental organizations. Eventually, after much turbulence, it was decided to route the S2 road through Ursynów in a tunnel. Construction began in the first quarter of 2017 and was expected to take a year and a half. In the end, work on the construction of the longest tunnel in the country took four years.
Linear park over the tunnel of Warsaw's southern ring road in Ursyoniv
Photo: Krzysztof Babicki © ZZW
In addition to the benefits pointed out by Warsaw's authorities, the construction of the tunnel in Ursynów also had a number of consequences that were not only onerous, but also negative in a much broader sense. Residents did not receive the previously promised purifiers for exhaust fumes escaping from ventilation shafts. As a result of the transformation of the area, the end of its history was reached by the Bazaar on the Pit on Wag Brothers Street. Few people also remember that in addition to the larger trees scattered along the greenbelt at the site of the ceiling of today's tunnel, there was also a small park, densely overgrown with trees, on Flipina Plaskowicka Street. Will the new linear park compensate for all these changes?
