Editing Transport in Sudan (section)

== Highways ==
''Total'':
31,000&nbsp;km

''Paved'': 
8,000&nbsp;km

''Unpaved'': 
23,000&nbsp;km

''Urban'': 
1,000&nbsp;km (2019)<ref name=":2" />

Sudan remains heavily dependent on railroads, but the road network has played an increasingly important role.<ref name="loc2015">{{citation-attribution|1={{Cite encyclopedia |last=DeLancey |first=Virginia |title=Transportation and Telecommunications |editor-last=Berry |editor1-first=LaVerle |url=https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/cs/pdf/CS_Sudan.pdf|encyclopedia=Sudan : a country study |date=2015 |publisher=[[Federal Research Division]], [[Library of Congress]] |isbn=978-0-8444-0750-0 |edition=5th |location=Washington, D.C. |pages=201–213}}}}. Though published in 2015, this work covers events in the whole of Sudan (including present-day South Sudan) until the 2011 secession of South Sudan.</ref> Two trans-African automobile routes pass through Sudan: the [[Cairo-Cape Town Highway]] from north to south and the [[N'Djamena-Djibouti Highway]] from west to east. Estimates of the road network in 2009 ranged upwards from 55,000 kilometers, but it is an inadequate network for the size of the country.<ref name="loc2015" /> Asphalted allweather roads, excluding paved streets in cities and towns, amounted to roughly 3,600 kilometers, of which the Khartoum–Port Sudan road, the most important highway, accounted for almost 1,200 kilometers.<ref name="loc2015" /> There were about 3,740 kilometers of gravel roads and an estimated 45,000 kilometers of mainly seasonal earth roads and sand tracks, about half of which were classified as feeder roads.<ref name="loc2015" />

The roads were generally in poor condition in 2009–10 but usable all year round, although travel might be interrupted at times during the rainy season.<ref name="loc2015" /> Most of the gravel roads in South Sudan became unusable after being heavily mined by the insurgent forces of the [[Sudan People's Liberation Army|Sudan People’s Liberation Army]] (SPLA).<ref name="loc2015" />

The government favored the railroads until the early 1970s, believing that they better met the country's requirements for transportation and that the primary purpose of roads was to act as feeders to the rail system.<ref name="loc2015" /> The railroads were also a profitable government operation.<ref name="loc2015" /> Disillusion with railroad performance led to a new emphasis on roads in a readjustment of the Five-Year Plan in 1973—the so-called Interim Action Program—and a decision to encourage competition between rail and road transport as the best way to improve services.<ref name="loc2015" /> Paving of the dry-weather road between Khartoum and Port Sudan via AlGedaref and Kassala was the most significant immediate step.<ref name="loc2015" />

Other important road-paving projects of the early 1980s included a road from Wad Madani to Sinnar and an extension from Sinnar to Kosti on the White Nile completed in 1984.<ref name="loc2015" /> Since then the paved road was extended to Umm Rawabah and Al-Obeid.<ref name="loc2015" /> A number of main gravel roads radiating from Juba were also improved.<ref name="loc2015" /> These included roads to the towns southwest of Juba and a road to the Ugandan border.<ref name="loc2015" /> In addition, the government built a gravel all-weather road east of Juba that reached the Kenyan border and connected with the Kenyan road system.<ref name="loc2015" /> All of these improvements radiating from Juba, however, were vitiated by the civil war, in which the roads were extensively mined by the SPLA and the bridges destroyed.<ref name="loc2015" /> In addition, because roads were not maintained, they deteriorated seriously.<ref name="loc2015" />
[[File:Al-Quasar Street (Khartoum) 001.jpg|thumb|Cars on Al-Quasar Street in Khartoum in 2009]]
New asphalt roads to the north and south of Khartoum had been completed or were under construction in the mid-2000s, as well as new roads in the oil regions and a road linking Sudan to Chad.<ref name="loc2015" /> Grants and concessionary loans mainly from the Islamic Development Bank, the Arab Monetary Fund, and other Arab development organizations financed these projects.<ref name="loc2015" /> The highway from Al-Gedaref to Gondar in Ethiopia was refurbished and reopened in 2002 to allow expansion of trade following improvement in diplomatic ties.<ref name="loc2015" /> A newly paved highway from Port Sudan to Atbarah, funded by the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development at a cost of US$110 million, reopened in 2009.<ref name="loc2015" /> It reduced travel time by several hours between Port Sudan and Khartoum.<ref name="loc2015" /> The “Northern Lifeline” Khartoum–Atbarah–Abu Hamid–Merowe road was also newly paved, open, and continued northward in 2011, and a paved road went from Khartoum to Kosti and on southward.<ref name="loc2015" /> Road transport and bus services seemed likely to increase as improved roads were extended south of Khartoum in the country's main agricultural areas.<ref name="loc2015" />

In anticipation of the signing of the peace treaty in 2005, the World Food Programme appealed for US$64 million to clear the land mines and repair the roads in the South to facilitate the delivery of food to millions of people in the region and to allow another million people to safely return to their homes.<ref name="loc2015" /> Much work was being done to increase
the network of all-weather roads there because many existing roads became impassable during the rainy season.<ref name="loc2015" />

Other new roads under construction included access roads in the oil regions, and a road from Port Sudan to Egypt.<ref name="loc2015" /> New bridges were built over the Nile, all in Khartoum except for one that opened in 2007 in Merowe.<ref name="loc2015" /> One new road linking the North and South was planned, as part of the commitment of the CPA, although it had not been built by 2011.<ref name="loc2015" /> Construction was underway in 2009 to extend the small network of all-weather roads in the South; however, this work was still hampered by the presence of land mines.<ref name="loc2015" />