Roads in Ukraine

The network of trunk roads (M-highways) (some of which are expressways) of Ukraine is in blue, in green are identified automagistrals (motorways)

Roads in Ukraine (Ukrainian: Авто(мобі́льні) шляхи України, Автошляхи) is a network of automobile roads that includes various types of roadways. The roads are usually categorized into general (public) use including streets and roads within populated areas (i.e. cities/villages), and other including official, private, and special use. The general use roadways are the main traveling routes and some better are part of the E-road network. High-speed highways (motorways), however, locally known as auto-magistrali or expressways (shvydkisni dorohy) are rare and only available on selected segments of major routes. Big construction projects to improve the national road infrastructure was announced in early 2010 in preparation to the Euro 2012 football competition and there was established Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine headed by Borys Kolesnikov. The reality turned to be more prosaic and the road infrastructure continues to be among main problems in the country.

Ukraine's network of roadways was inherited from the Ukrainian SSR (Soviet Ukraine), and during the Soviet period it was part of the bigger Soviet network of roadways. The modern network consists 99% of roads for public use with 12% assigned as of state importance and 87% - local importance. The whole network of all automobile roads (roadways) consists of some 172,400 km (107,100 mi) of which 164,100 km (102,000 mi) - have hard surface or 95.19%. The existing road network was mostly built (established) sometime in the 1960s and 1970s. For comparison, in 1940 the highway network of Ukraine consisted of 270,700 kilometers of which only 10.8% contained a paved surface.

Some critics point out that not only road conditions, but road safety is in complete disarray and the level of police corruption has not diminished after the recent reforms.^[1]

Since 2020, the big construction project named "Great Construction" is in full flow and since then, many roads have been reconstructed or renovated. Due to many dominant companies from poland, turkey, belarus and china, which compete against each other in ukraines road construction, many domestic road construction companies, which are known for being corrupt are going bankrupt or try to improve their image with better road quality. Domestic construction companies only work on regional and local roads with price tags under 1 million USD. Not like turkish, belarusian, american, polish and chinese, which work on projects worth millions to hundred millions USD.

Overview[]

Section of the E 95 M 05 highway near Kyiv.

After the fall of the Soviet Union all road service state bodies within Ukraine were reorganized. The state agency was established as a state corporation in 1990, replacing the Ministry of Roadways of Soviet Ukraine as the state governing body of automobile roads in modern Ukraine. It is supplemented by a project institute Ukrhiprodor which designs objects of road management. Ukravtodor^[2] is supervised by the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine.^[3] On February 28, 2002 by the Presidential order the state owned open stock company Avtomobilni dorohy Ukrainy (ADU) was created.^[4] The company was directly involved in road construction and maintenance. In 2016 ADU was merged into Ukravtodor, with the latter now owning 100% of its shares.^[5]

In 2015 the World Bank Group approved a US$560 million loan to improve road conditions in Ukraine particularly along the M03 route between Poltava and Kharkiv among others.^[6]

In 2016 many of Ukraine's major provincial highways were in very poor condition, with 97% of roads in need of repair at that time, according to Ukravtodor. This high figure was mostly a result of budget misallocations due to corruption, and lackluster weight restriction enforcement for trucks.^[7] In 2016 the road repair budget was set at about 20 billion hryvnias. In 2017 the Groysman government began a three year large-scale renovation of Ukraine's motorway infrastructure,^[8] with the road budget climbing to 42 billion hryvnia in 2018.^[8] In 2019, the annual road budget rose further to 51 billion hryvnia,^[9] and reached a record high of 70 billion hryvnia in 2020.^[10]

Ukraine's increased efforts at road maintenance and construction are showing tangible results. On the Quality of Roads Report of the World Economic Forum, Ukraine rose from 139th place in 2014 to 119th place in 2019, improving 20 places in five years.^[11]

Classifications[]

The state importance roads have three indexes M, H, P, T, each stand for the respective letter of Cyrillic. The state importance roads are utilized by the European E-network of highways.

The M-network of roads which stands for International network along with H-network (National) range from 01 to 23 and consist of two digits. These roads are designed for the major transportation corridors across the country and the European highway system.

The P-network (Regional) of roads ranges from 01 to 65 and also is a combination of two digits.

The T-network (Territorial) of roads are part of territorial road network within the main subdivision of Ukraine (i.e. oblasts of Ukraine) and their index includes a combination of four digits with extra two indices to identify the region where a particular road is located.

Automagistrals[]

In Ukraine high-speed divided highways or motorways are called automagistrals which is a generic Russian-type term for high-speed road. Currently automagistrals are not designated into a separate network, instead only segments of automobile roads adopted for automagistrals.

In the late 2000s the first improved highspeed freeways were installed, such as the automagistral Kyiv - Boryspil (Ukrainian: Автомагістраль Київ - Бориспіль), which connected the capital with its major airport and runs along M03 road, and the other one Kharkiv - Dnipro which connected to major cities and runs along M18 road. The Kyiv-Boryspil freeway stretches for 18 km (11 mi) and has an ability to allow the traffic volume of 40,000 vehicles on daily basis (24 hrs). An important supplemental feature of the automagistral is an electronic informational system that allows the traveling drivers to be informed of any updates on the route. That experimental project was installed in 2007 and cost 40 million hryvnia.

Road characteristics categories[]

Aside of classification the roads in Ukraine are categorized by the road's ability to handle a certain degree of traffic. There are five categories with roads of I category split in a and b subcategories. Also all roads of I category are considered automagistrals, however not all of them could be considered as real motorways. Around 2010 there were two major automagistrals: Kyiv - Boryspil and Kharkiv - Dnipro. They are categorized as the top roads of category Ia.

List of International E-road network in Ukraine[]

The European routes are part of the International E-road network, routes of which run not only throughout the European continent covering such remote areas as the British Isles, but also parts of the Asian continent regions such as Middle Asia, Caucasus mountains, and Asia Minor. The European routes in Ukraine mostly travel on the Ukrainian International routes network, known as M-network.

International E-road network in Ukraine

In the list below with a green background are identified the main routes. Those are either ones that end with zero (0) or five (5). Note that odd numbers have north-south directions and even numbers - east-west. With the red background are the obsolete routes.

Highway	Local routes	Length in Ukraine	Notes
E 38	P 65	37 km	The shortest
E 40	M 10 - M 06 - M 03 - M 04	1334 km	The longest
E 50	M 08 - M 06 – M 12 - M 04 - M 03
E 58	M 08 - M 06 - - M 23 - ... (Moldova) ... M 16 - M 14
E 81	- M 23 - /	41 km
E 85	M 19 - M 19
E 87	M 15
E 93	Changed to E 95
E 95	M 01 - M 05...(Turkey)	692 km	ferry service in Odessa
E 97	M 17...(Russia)	423.6 km	Kerch Strait ferry
E 101	M 01 - M 02
E 105	M 18 – M 20	777 km
Auxiliary routes
E 372	M 09	62.5 km
E 373	M 07	486.5 km
	Kyiv - Hlukhiv
E 391	Hlukhiv (same as E 101)	160 km
E 471	M 06	221 km
E 573	M 06	26 km
E 577	Changed to E 584
E 581	M 16	58.7 km
E 583	M 21	260 km
E 584	M 13 - M 12 - M 04 - M 22	507 km

Notes:

• Route E 471 is completely located within Ukraine.

Transportation corridors[]

The European route network creates several important transport corridors known as Pan-European corridors and also including such as Gdańsk-Odessa, Eurasian, Europe-Asia, ChES, and others. There exist a proposition to create a beltway around the Black Sea, traveling through the Crimean peninsula.

Among the Pan-European corridors system, Ukraine houses such corridors as III (Brussels - Dresden - Krakow - Kyiv), V (Venice - Budapest - Lviv - Kyiv), VII (The Danube river), and IX (Helsinki - Saint-Petersburg - Gomel - Kyiv - Chisinau - Bucharest - Thrace).

Border checkpoints[]

Country	Highway	Nearest settlement	Region
Russia	E 101	Bachivsk, Hlukhiv Raion	Sumy
	E 58	Novoazovsk
	E 50	Dolzhansky
	E 105	Shcherbakivka
	E 40	Izvaryne, Krasnodon	Luhansk
Poland		Shehyni, Mostyska Raion	Lviv
		Krakivets, Yavoriv Raion
	E 372	Rava-Ruska, Zhovkva Raion
		Ustyluh, Volodymyr-Volynskyi Raion	Volyn
	E 373
Hungary	E 573	Kosyny, Chop	Zakarpattia
Slovakia	E 50	Uzhhorod
		Maly Berezny, Velykyy Bereznyi Raion
Moldova		Kuchurhan, Rozdilnianskyi Raion
		Mamalyha, Dnistrovskyi Raion	Chernivtsi
	E 584	Platonove, Krasni Okny Raion
	E 583	Mohyliv-Podilsky	Vinnytsia
Romania	E 81	Velyka Kopanya
	E 87	Reni	Odessa
	E 85	Terebleche
Belarus		Domanove
	E 95	Novi Yarylovychi, Chernihiv Raion	Chernihiv

Projects[]

Dnipro - Reshetilovka Highway (N-31) ^[12]

As of 2020, work is ongoing on the strategic N-31 highway connecting the capital with Dnipro, a major industrial hub. The largest construction site is located in the Poltava region, where a 7-kilometre section of concrete-surface highway is being built from scratch.^[13] The bypass section around Poltava includes a 518-metre long viaduct.^[14]

Kyiv - Odessa Highway (M-05)

As of 2020, work is underway to reconstruct the Kyiv-Odessa Highway along its entire length of 453 km. Reconstruction is scheduled to finish in 2021. According to Ukravtodor, the reconstruction is "complex", as it includes not just the road surface, but adjacent road services as well, such as the installation of weight-in-motion (WiM) complexes, grade-separated intersections, and the abandonment of left-turning lanes.^[15]

Zhytomyr Northern Bypass (M-06)

The Northern Bypass section of the M-06 Highway around Zhytomyr is being expanded to four lanes, with the maximum speed increased to 110 km/h.^[16] The project includes four multi-level interchanges and three grade-separated railway crossings. Construction is scheduled to finish in 2020.^[17]

Rivne Northern Bypass Phase One

A two-lane bypass road is currently under construction around the city of Rivne. The first phase is a 6 km road section built from scratch, linking the N-25 and T-18-32 highways. The project aims to relieve the city center from heavy transit traffic.^[18] The project includes a 280-metre long overpass above a ravine.^[19]

Roads of local importance[]

The local importance roads have three classes as well, but only two indexes T, O. The Raion network of roads does not have a system implemented. The indexes for the local roads are also supplemented by an oblast index where they are located.

Note that the list is arranged in the order of Cyrillic(for some unexplained reasons Chernihiv oblast goes in front of Chernivtsi oblast). For example, the territorial highway 22 in Rivne Oblast would be identified as T-18-22 where 18 is the index for the Rivne Oblast. The T-network (Territorial) as the rest of the roads networks of local importance differs per oblast, but the road numbering itself consists of two digits. The Oblast network (O-network), on the other hand, has the same concept of T-network, but the road numbering contains four digits and the code does not have the hyphen as in T-networks. For example, a highway in Kharkiv Oblast would have code O-21xxxx.

Special routes in Ukraine[]

Behavior of some special routes in the United States

There are two main technical terms for special routes: pidyizd (ukr. під'їзд) and obyizd (ukr. об'їзд).

• Pidyizd route is usually an access route that splits from the main route towards an important geographic point such as city, airport, park etc. On the adjacent picture it can be compared to the spur route.
• Obyizd route is a type of ring road which is not necessarily complete. On the adjacent picture it can be compared to the bypass route, business route, truck route.

Historical routes[]

• Murava Route
• Bila Tserkva road
• Izyum Route (branch of Murava route)
• Silk Road
• Berlad road
• From the Varangians to the Greeks
• Chumak route
• Black route
• Romodanovsky route
• Kuchma route (branch of Black route)
• Kraków road
• Kolky route
• Kyiv route
• Kalmius route (branch of Murava route)
• Zaloha route

Populated area roadways[]

Types of roadways

• Vulytsia/street, a most common and generic type of a roadway within a populated area with the English counterpart becoming more widely used
• Shose, a broad road built for high-speed traffic for big distances with limited number of points through which drivers can access it;^[20] generally accessible road, especially main road that connects cities or settlements^[21]
• Prospekt, a term for a broad, long, and straight road in big cities
• Bulvar, a scenic broad road, such as boulevard
• Naberezhna, a roadway along shore or bank of body of water (i.e. sea, river, or lake)
• Obyizdna/kiltseva, a roadway around city
• Provulok, a back street, small roadway such as side street

See also[]

• State Highways (Ukraine), list of state (national) highways

References[]

Sources[]

• International Highways in Ukraine (russian, ukrainian, english languages)
• List of European routes at the Wayback Machine (archived January 9, 2008)
• Convention of road markings and signals
• Official text of the European agreement on International Highway System (E-Network)
• Declaration of the Cabinets Ministers of Ukrainian SSR of joining the European agreement on E-Network
• Law of Ukraine on automobile roads (highways), Law of Ukraine on road movement, Law of Ukraine on transport, Regulations for the international highways of the Commonwealth of Independent States
• Declaration of Cabinet of Minister of Ukraine on the tollway Lviv-Krakovets, Law of Ukraine on the tollway Kiev-Odessa
• Traffic signs in Ukraine
• List of state automobile roads for general use. Cabinet of Ukraine. January 1, 2013