Transport in Ethiopia - Highways

Highways

As the first part of a 10-year Road Sector Development Program, between 1997 and 2002 the Ethiopian government began a sustained effort to improve its infrastructure of roads. As a result, as of 2002 Ethiopia has a total (Federal and Regional) 33,297 km of roads, both paved and gravel. The share of Federally managed roads in good quality improved from 14% in 1995 to 31% in 2002 as a result of this program, and to 89% in 2009 the road density increased from 21 km per 1000 km2 (in 1995) to 889 km; per 1000 km2 (in 2009) however, this is much greater than the average of 50 km per 1000 km2 for Africa.

The Ethiopian government has begun second part of the Road Sector Development Program, which was completed in 2007. This will involve the upgrading or construction of over 7,500 km of roads, with the goal of improving the average road density for Ethiopia to 35 km per 1000 km2, and reduce the proportion of the country area that is more than 5 km from an all-weather road from 75% to 70%.

As of 2006, Ethiopia only had one expressway—the Addis Ababa Ring Road. This is a four-lane limited-access divided highway, which forms a beltway around the capital. Some portions are still yet to be completed. The majority of its interchanges consist of roundabouts. Pedestrian bridges were constructed every kilometer, to reduce the risk of accidents. While not built to expressway standards, many roads in Addis Ababa and other cities can be considered dual carriageways and have up to four lanes in each direction with hardly any intersections.

But the Ethiopian Roads Authority and China Communications Construction Consultancy is going to build a new six-lane expressway between Addis Ababa and Adama. The expressway will be 80 km long, will shorten the Addis to Adama distance by 20 km. To build this expressway will cost Ethiopia US$350 million. The expressway will begin at Ayat, Addis Ababa and end in north part of Adama. 150 km/h is the limited speed at the expressway, the journey will take about 30–40 minutes. The expressway will be completed in 2014.

Ethiopia has spent over 600 billion birr (USD $50 billion, €30 billion) in infrastructure since 1990, according to the Ethiopian government.

• total (Regional and Federal): 101,359 km (2009)
• asphalt: 90,336 km (2009) (89% of the roads in Ethiopia is asphalt)
• gravel: 11,023 km (2009) (11% of the roads in Ethiopia is gravel)
• maintained by Regional government: 86,580 km (2009)

Major roads include:
No 1: north from Addis Ababa 891 km via Dessie to Adigrat, from Dessie to Weldiya. Designated part of the Ndjamena-Djibouti Trans-African Highway 6 (TAH 6)
No 2: east from Dessie 482 km to Aseb. Designated part of the Ndjamena-Djibouti TAH 6
No 3: north from Addis Ababa across the Blue Nile at Dejen and again at Bahir Dar east around Lake Tana 979 km via Gondar and Aksum to Adwa. Designated part of the Cairo-Cape Town Trans-African Highway 4 (TAH 4) from Addis Ababa to Gondar, and part of TAH 6 from Wereta to Gondar
No 4: east from Addis Ababa 542 km via Dire Dawa to Jijiga
No 5: west from Addis Ababa 322 km to Nekemte
No 6: south from Addis Ababa 797 km via Shashamene to Moyale. Designated part of TAH 4;
No 7: south-west from Addis Ababa 336 km via Waliso (Ghion) and Jimma to Bonga
No 8: south from Nazret 193 km via Asella and Dodola to Mogadishu
No 18: north from Awash on No 4 305 km to Mille on No 2
No 30: south-east from Jijiga 696 km across the Ogaden to the Shabelle valley
No 43: south-west from Nekemte 226 km to Metu
No 44: south-east from Shashamene 308 km to Dolo Odo (Doolow)

• Wereta-Woldia: Designated part of the Ndjamena-Djibouti Highway (TAH 6)