Highways and Roads
Most major roads were built in the 1960s with assistance from the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviets built a road and tunnel through the Salang pass in 1964, connecting northern and southern Afghanistan. A highway connecting the principal cities of Herat, Kandahar, Ghazni, and Kabul with links to highways in neighboring Pakistan formed the primary road system.
The network includes 12,350 kilometers of paved roads and 29,800 kilometers of unpaved roads, for an approximate total road system of 42,150 kilometers as of 2006. Traffic in Afghanistan is right hand, with about 731,607 registered vehicles in the country. The Afghan government passed a law banning the import of cars older than 10 years.
Long distant road journeys are made by company-owned Mercedes-Benz coach buses or various types of vans, trucks and private cars. Although nationwide bus service is available between major cities, flying is safer, especially for foreigners. There are occasional highway robberies by bandits or militant groups. The roads are also dangerous due to accidents and lack of security forces.
Read more about this topic: Transport In Afghanistan
Famous quotes containing the words highways and/or roads:
“That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)
“We joined long wagon trains moving south; we met hundreds of wagons going north; the roads east and west were crawling lines of families traveling under canvas, looking for work, for another foothold somewhere on the land.... The country was ruined, the whole world was ruined; nothing like this had ever happened before. There was no hope, but everyone felt the courage of despair.”
—Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968)