Repairs and Safety Infrastructure – Ukraine’s 2020 Road Strategy

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has presented a strategy for the development of Ukrainian roads for 2020. Approximately $3.5 billion are expected to be allocated for the reconstruction of state roads. The plans are to build new bypasses, improve road safety, and combat corruption in the road construction industry.

The funds will be sourced from the Road Fund (approx. $1.28 billion for state roads and approx. $900 million for local roads), state guarantees (about $815 million), and from international partners: the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, World Bank and Investment Bank (about $175 million).

In total, in 2020 the government plans to repair more than 6.5 thousand kilometers of roads. But this is in the most favorable scenario, when, in addition to the money from the Road Fund, Ukraine will receive planned loans under state guarantees, and find additional financing from the budget.

Most of the road surfaces are planned to be restored on the following roads:

• M-12 Stryi – Ternopil – Kropyvnytskyi – Znamyanka (via Vinnytsia) (275,1 km)
• М-03 Kyiv – Kharkiv – Dovzhansky (to Rostov-on-Don) (98 km)
• M-18 Kharkiv – Simferopol – Alushta – Yalta (90.4 km)
• M-19 Domanove (to Brest) – Kovel – Chernivtsi – Terebleche (Domanove – Kovel) (233.4 km)
• M-21 Starobilsk – Luhansk – Khrustalny – Makiyivka – Donetsk (Novoaidar – Shchastia – "Stanytsia Luhanska" checkpoint) (172.5 km)
• M-21 Vystupovychi – Zhytomyr – Mohyliv-Podilskyi (172.5 km)
• H-01 Kyiv – Znamyanka (74 km)
• H-09 Mukachevo – Rakhiv – Bohorodchany – Ivano-Frankivsk – Rohatyn – Bibrka – Lviv (91.3 km)
• H-11 Dnipro – Mykolaiv (via Kryvyi Rih) (129.8 km)
• H-13 Lviv – Sambir – Uzhhorod (143.6 km)
• H-16 Zolotonosha – Cherkasy – Smila – Uman (Talne – Zvenyhorodka) (180.4 km)
• H-23 Kropyvnytskyi – Kryvyi Rih – Zaporizhzhia (99.5 km)
• H-30 Vasylivka – Berdyansk (123 km)
• H-31 Dnipro – Tsarychanka – Kobelyaky – Reshetylivka (146.8 km)
• P-24 Tatariv – Kosiv – Kolomyia – Borshchiv – Kamianets-Podilskyi (116.8 km)

The road services will also take care of bridges. They will start building a bridge in Zaporizhzhia, reconstruct the Varvarivskyi drawbridge in Mykolaiv and prepare project documentation for a bridge in Kremenchuk.

Bypass routes – a total of 101.5 km – are planned to be built in 2020 in Dnipro, Lviv, Zhytomyr, Rivne, Ternopil, Berehove, Dunaivtsi and Kobylyanka. The government also plans to expand the highway network.

At the presentation of the road renovation strategy, Ukraine’s Minister of Infrastructure Vladyslav Krykliy noted that the road fund stipulates spending $130 million for road safety in 2020.

“In 2018, there was zero use of these funds. In 2019 – what we managed in the short amount of time – 38% of the funding was used (out of 2.8 billion hryvnias). The largest figure for the security component is 3.2 billion hryvnias (approx. $130 million) in 2020, and we plan to use this money fully for measures that will reduce the accident rate,” Krykliy said.

$61 million will be allocated for security infrastructure:

• 35 roundabouts
• 20 multi-level pedestrian crossings
• 500 pedestrian crossings in areas where road accidents most often occur
• elimination of 16 sites with the highest number of accidents

The government has also promised to pave the way to all health facilities in the regions, combat corruption in the road sector, and expand the truck weighing-in-motion and road scanning network.