Roads in Zimbabwe

Wide tarred road with a cycle track.

ZIMSEC O Level Geography Notes: Transport: Road transport network in Zimbabwe

Roads in Zimbabwe have been divided into groups, namely:<
1. Wide-tarred roads which are two-way highways with a minimum width of 6 metres, and
2. Other roads include here are narrow-tarred roads, strip roads and all-weather gravel roads which stand a chance of being tarred, funds permitting.
Roads in Zimbabwe are classified using the A-system.
A standing for the German word autobahn which has a number added to it to indicate the smoothness of the surface.
A1 is the best surfaced road in Zimbabwe followed by A2, A3, A4, or A5 and so on.
Regional Road Corridors are numbered R1, R2, R3 and so on. They may also be called by their original type and route name like A1, A2, A3 etc.
In some cases one type “R” road may comprise two or more type “A” routes; e.g. R2 comprises A5 and A7 (Harare-Plumtree Road).
Ordinary primary roads are numbered P1, P2, P3 etc. These are primary roads but not convenient for cross-border traffic and services.
In Britain, they use the M-system where M stand for Motorway while in the USA, they use the H-system for
There are more wide-tarred roads in the central, north-east and in the eastern part of the country.
These roads are fewer in the south, south-west, west, north-west and north of the country.
These are general descriptions.
Wide tarred roads are fewer than other roads and mostly wide tarred roads follow commercial farming areas while other roads link communal areas.
Wide tarred roads also link cities, towns and growth points.
The greatest concentration of wide tarred road is found around Harare with 8 such roads radiating from it.
Bulawayo has 4 wide-tarred roads stemming from it.
There are also many wide tarred roads around Zvishavane, Masvingo, Chivhu, Bindura and Gweru.
The wide tarred roads cross Zimbabwe’s boarders at 6 points.
These are Victoria Falls, Plumtree, Beitbridge, Mutare, Nyamapanda and Chirundu.
There are many wide-tarred roads in the central, north-east and eastern parts of the country because there is a lot economic activity in the form of commercial farms, mines, manufacturing industries as well as tourism.
Another reason is because there are more towns and cities as well as large populations which need to be linked by these roads.
Physically, the land is fairly flat here, making it easy to construct wide tarred roads.
In the other parts of the country, the wide-tarred roads are fewer because of low population densities, hot, dry environment and lack of vibrant economic activities.
Some of the land here are state lands used for parks and so do not need many wide-tarred roads.
The wide tarred roads are fewer than ‘other’ type of road because they are more expensive to construct.
Poor quality roads occur in communal areas because of political reasons.
The colonial governments wanted to bring better infrastructure only to commercial farming areas.
However since colonialism the government has built a number of wide-tarred roads through communal areas in-order to re-address this issue.
On a more local scale, the construction of road is strongly affected by physical relief features on the ground.
Roads can be built whenever possible even along watersheds.
This is done in order to prevent erosion of the road by rivers or flooding and washing away of bridges.
Another reason is to avoid the cost of building bridges to cross the rivers.
It also prevents waterlogging, development of corrugations and sinking of the road.
Examples of watershed roads abound in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe such as the road from Rusape to Nyanga via Juliasdale, the Juliasdale-Mutare road via Watsomba and Wengezi-Chimanimani road.
In hilly terrain, roads are built along valleys or gaps and passes in order to reduce the gradient scaled by vehicles in transit.
Spectacular winding roads have been built at Christmas Pass, Mutare and at the Boterekwa Pass (formerly known as Wolfshall Pass) just south of Shurugwi.
A smaller but equally spectacular gravel road has been constructed at Zibwi Pass south of Mnene Mission in Mberengwa.
At times, in the need to follow the shortest possible routes linking places, roads have to be built across large rivers with all the entailing costs of building imposing bridges.
An example is Birchenough Bridge where the Masvingo-Mutare road crosses the Save river, the Victoria Falls bridge, the Chirundu bridge and Beitbridge.
Where marshes and lakes occur, a road will avoid these, taking longer, winding routes around them.
If the ground is very uneven, it may be necessary to make embankments at depressions and cutting on higher ground or hill edges to let a road pass through.
Tunnels may even be cut through mountains to shorten a route.
Modern roads are very expensive to build.
At present, there is need for such road in Gokwe North, Mberengwa, Gwanda, Beitbridge, Tsholotsho, Lupane and Chiredzi districts with a large economic potential but with terrible road network.