Measures for sustainable development of road network

Abstract

In the first decade of XXI century, considerable changes took place in the world and in Lithuania, and together with a 20-year experience of road development and maintenance in independent Lithuania, they force to re-assess the attitude towards roads, their infrastructure, development trends and priorities. The aim of the paper is to analyse sustainable ways of road network development, to identify main goals and objectives in accordance with EU and national sustainable development principles. The analysis is based on feasibility studies, environmental impact assessments of road projects in Lithuania. Sustainable road netw ork development should meet 3 essential principles of sustainability – to reduce the impact on climate change; on human health and biological diversity. The main tasks for achieving the aims of sustainable development were defined and the measures for their implementation were anticipated: to reduce the use of natural resources, fuel consumption and emissions of green-house gases (CO2 carbon dioxide); to reduce traffic generated emissions to su ch degree that the impact on human health and environment is decreased; to reduce traffic-generated noise in the environment and at source by implementing noise mitigation measures in orde r to minimize the impact of total noise level on human health; to increase road traffic safety; to reduce the impact of existing roads on biological diversity, to stop increasing the impact on biological diversity when building roads. The paper presents a foreca st on the possible economic effect of the purposeful implementation of sustainable development measures.