Roads in Rwanda
The transport system in Rwanda centres primarily around the road network. Paved roads lie between the capital, Kigali, and most other major cities and towns in the country. Rwanda is also linked by road with other countries in the African Great Lakes, via which the majority of the country's imports and exports are made.
A large amount of investments in the transport infrastructure has been made by the government since the 1994 genocide, with aid from the European Union, China, Japan and others.
The road network
Rwanda has a total of 12,000 km (7,500 mi) of roads, of which 1,000 km (620 mi) are paved.[1] The remainder are dirt roads with quality varying from smooth hard surfaces with drainage to rutted, extremely uneven tracks passable only with a four-wheel drive vehicle.
Vehicles in the country drive on the right-hand side of the road. However, the three largest members of the East African Community (EAC) to which Rwanda is a part of, including neighbouring Tanzania and Uganda, drive on the left. It is significantly cheaper to import vehicles designed to drive on the left than on the right, possibly due to the second hand market from India and Japan being cheaper than that of Europe, so more of these cars were imported until the government banned their import in 2005 due to safety concerns. Due to the difference in car price, and the potential to better economically integrate with other EAC and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa countries, the government has considered switching the country to driving on the left.[2]
Paved roads
Most of the main towns in the country are now connected by paved road. The condition of these roads was until recently very poor, with numerous pot-holes and vehicles often driving on the dirt verges since these were deemed smoother than the road itself. A recent government programme of upgrading and resurfacing means that most major routes are now in good condition.
The major urban arteries of Kigali, as well as the high streets in Ruhengeri, Kibuye, and Gisenyi are dual carriageways, but all national long distance roads are single carriageway. There are no motorways in Rwanda.
References
- ^ "CIA World Factbook - Rwanda".
- ^ Bari, Md Mahabubul (29 July 2014). "The study of the possibility of switching driving side in Rwanda". European Transport Research Review. Vol. 6. pp. 439–444. doi:10.1007/s12544-014-0144-2.