page_title: Road transport in the Netherlands
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Road transport in the Netherlands / History
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Right Rijkswaterstaat
context_page_description: With 139,000 km of public roads, the Netherlands has one of the most dense road networks in the world – much denser than Germany and France, but still not as dense as Belgium. In 2013, 5,191 km were national roads, 7,778 km were provincial roads, and 125,230 km were municipality and other roads.
  Dutch roads include 3,530 km of motorways and expressways, and with a motorway density of 64 kilometres per 1,000 km², the country also has one of the densest motorway networks in the world. In Dutch a motorway is called "autosnelweg" or simply "snelweg"; other expressways are just called "autoweg". According to a 2004 estimate, some 12,500 km of road remain as yet unpaved.
  Mobility on Dutch roads has grown continuously since the 1950s and now exceeds 200 billion km travelled per year. With a population of 16.8 million people, this comes down to an average of 32 kilometres per person per day. Around half of all trips in the Netherlands are made by car, making up three quarters of all passenger kilometres travelled, meaning that while Dutch roads are numerous, they are also used with one of the highest intensities of any road network.
context_section_description: The Netherlands' first centrally planned highway system dates back to the early 19th century, when Napoleon was emperor of France, and the Kingdom of Holland was annexed into the French empire. In 1811 Napoleon decreed that a network of 229 paved imperial roads (Routes Impériales) would be created, extending from Paris to the borders of his empire. In addition to systematic paving, the roads were all numbered, an innovation at the time. Construction of several imperial highways through the Netherlands commenced. Amsterdam was connected to Paris by Route Impériale no. 2 - a section between Amsterdam and Utrecht is today still a part of the A2 motorway.
  
  After the liberation in 1813, the Netherlands' new king continued the project, but with Amsterdam at the centre. The plan was expanded several times. In 1821 it projected 42 Rijksstraatwegen (literally: "Imperial paved roads"), which were built up to 1850. Since 1927 this network was transformed into today's system of Rijkswegen (national highways) in the Netherlands.
  The first motorway dates back to 1936, when the current A12 was opened to traffic between Voorburg and Zoetermeer, near The Hague. Motorway construction accelerated in the 1960s and 1970s, but halted in the 1980s. Current motorway expansion mostly occurs outside the Randstad, and very little construction has taken place inside the Randstad since the 1980s. Since 1991, only 100 kilometers of motorway have been constructed in the entire country, of which only 26 km lie within the Randstad metropolitan area. The population has grown by 1.5 million since, creating significant pressure on the motorway network. Nevertheless, the growth in Dutch mobility during the last sixty years has been almost entirely through the use of motor vehicles.
caption: The 1927 Rijkswegenplan was the first Dutch national highway structure plan for a century
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