The A1 highway is a

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights of way. In the United States, it is also used as an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or ...

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

, connecting the three largest cities in the country:

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

, and

Klaipėda Klaipėda ( ; ) is a city in Lithuania on the Baltic Sea coast. It is the List of cities in Lithuania, third-largest city in Lithuania, the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, fifth-largest city in the Baltic States, and the capi ...

. The highway is long, making it the longest highway route in Lithuania. Highway is indicated as motorway between municipal borders of Vilnius and Klaipėda. This excludes sections that crosses

Vievis Vievis () is a small city in Elektrėnai municipality, Lithuania. It is located 14 km east of Elektrėnai, on Lake Vievis. History Its alternate names include Anastasevskaya, Jewie (Polish), Vevis, Viyevis, V’yevis, and Yev’ye. Vievis ...

and Sujainiai (which has one-level junction that is used by agricultural vehicles at times). The highway has two carriageways with two lanes each for the entire section. This excludes section near Kaunas between junctions with A5 and A6 highways. It's now undergoing reconstruction where the road will be widened to have four carriageways with two lanes each with one short section with four lanes which is already refurbished. Two outer carriageways will be used for connecting densely located local junctions with speed limit of 90 km/h, while two inner carriageways will avoid connections with local junctions and the speed limit will be higher with 110 km/h. Inner carriageways will be connected via slip roads from outer carriageways. The main reason why the road is now under construction is that the section has highest

AADT Annual average daily traffic (AADT) is a measure used primarily in transportation planning, transportation engineering and retail location selection. Traditionally, it is the total volume of vehicle traffic of a highway or road for a year divided ...

in Lithuania of all roads outside urban areas. Before 2021, only section Kaunas-Klaipėda was considered to be a motorway while section Kaunas-Vilnius was considered to be an expressway from 2006. Kaunas-Vilnius had too many substandard features for receiving motorway status. Reconstruction took place in 2020 on which many minor elements of the highway were renovated to fulfil the standards for safe 130 km/h traffic. This includes reconstruction of lanes near junctions, reducing amount of some slipways, removing possibility of pedestrian crossing at grade, building pedestrian underpasses and overpasses. New motorway will remain not completely grade separated since there are some points where the highway can be accessed via right ins and outs whom doesn't form parts of grade-separated junctions. This is not usual for motorway in Europe, since most motorways here are accessed via grade separated junction. The highway follows E85 for its entire length with the relatively short section of E67 northwest of

also known as the

Via Baltica European route E 67 is an E-road running from Prague in the Czech Republic to Estonia and by ferry to Finland. It goes via Prague, Wrocław, Warsaw, Kaunas, Panevėžys, Riga, Tallinn, Helsinki. The route is known as the Via Baltica ...

. The Vilnius–Kaunas highway was completed on 3 November 1970 and Kaunas–Klaipėda was completed on 1 September 1987. It replaced the first 40 kilometers of the 1930s-built Samogitian Highway stretching from Kaunas.

References

External links

Roads in Lithuania European route E85 {{Europe-road-stub

See also

References

External links