In Ukraine, from September 1, a new norm of the width of traffic lanes in cities and villages is being introduced with the aim of introducing European safety standards on the roads.

This was announced on his Facebook page by Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction and Housing and Communal Services Lev Partskhaladze.

According to him, the relevant changes concern the design of new and reconstruction of existing streets and roads and are contained in the new GOS B. 3-5: 2018 "Streets and roads of settlements".

"Today in Ukraine, the width of lanes on the roads is 3.5-3.75 meters, depending on their destination. However, European practice shows that roads with a smaller traffic lane - about 3-3.25 meters - subconsciously encourage drivers to go at a lower speed. Therefore, in the new GOS on the streets and roads, we decided to review and adapt this norm to European ones, thus narrowing the width of traffic lanes on Ukrainian roads during their design and construction, "wrote Partskhaladze.

Such changes will contribute to improving road safety and reducing accidents, increasing the capacity of streets and reducing congestion, as well as the effective development of cycling and public transport by arranging separate lanes for them.

According to the new GOS, the width of the lane on the main streets of citywide and regional importance in the largest, large, large, medium and small cities, except for continuous traffic, as well as on town roads and main streets is 3 m.

On the highways of the citywide value of continuous traffic in large and large cities, the lane width is 3.5 m.

On local residential streets and roads of all settlements, the lane width is 2.75 m.

The current traffic standards are 3.75 m for roads I and II, 3.50 m for III, 3.0 m for IV, and for V category, the width of the carriageway is 4.5 m without dividing it into lanes.