Roads in Ukraine

Section of the E95 M05 highway near Kiev.

After the fall of the Soviet Union all road service state bodies within Ukraine were reorganized. The state agency Ukravtodor 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]

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 Kiev - 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 Kiev-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.

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
E38	P65	37 km	The shortest
E40	M10 - M06 - M03 - M04	1334 km	The longest
E50	M08 - M06 – M12 - M04 - M03
E58	M08 - M06 - P54 - M23 - P55 ... (Moldova) ... M16 - M14
E81	P54 - M23 - P55/DN1C	41 km
E85	M19 - M19
E87	M15
E93	Changed to E95
E95	M01 - M05...(Turkey)	692 km	ferry service in Odessa
E97	M17...(Russia)	423.6 km	Kerch Strait ferry
E101	M01 - M02
E105	M18 – M20	777 km
Auxiliary routes
E372	M09	62.5 km
E373	M07	486.5 km
E381	Kiev - Hlukhiv
E391	Hlukhiv (same as E101)	160 km
E471	M06	221 km
E573	M06	26 km
E577	Changed to E584
E581	M16	58.7 km
E583	M21	260 km
E584	M13 - M12 - M04 - M22	507 km

Notes:

• Route E471 is completely located within Ukraine.

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]

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.

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.

• 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
• Kiev route
• Kalmius route (branch of Murava route)
• Zaloha route

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

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

• 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