National Road Plan
One of the most important structural factors for a balanced spatial planning policy is, without doubt, how the National Road Network is organized and this is reflected in a National Road Plan which governs national road infrastructure and optimizes land occupancy conditions and spatial planning. Underlying this plan is public interest and particularly the interests of those affected as well as the minimizing of environmental impacts.
The first National Road Plan was established in 1945 and sought to overcome shortcomings in the road network. It set technical characteristics and created a ranking for the road network. In this plan, the national road network, around 20 600 km in length, was ranked in three levels (1st, 2nd and 3rd class) and minimum platform widths were defined for each class.
Forty years later, in 1985, the new National Road Plan was published in response both to the significant growth and technological development in vehicles as well as to new development methodologies based on traffic forecasts, which had become generalized in the 1960s. The National Road Network thus came about, approximately 10 000 km in length, and the three-level ranking was maintained.
The last review took place in 1998 (commonly referred to as PRN2000) to meet the socio-economic development seen after Portugal joined the European Union. This plan provided for a total of around 16 500 km, of which about 5 000 km were included in a new category - Regional Roads. This new category of roads, which were of municipal interest and complementary to the National Road Network, were initially planned to remain provisionally under central government control, with the possibility that they would be transferred to the future regions. However, this matter was put to a referendum, and the results of this referendum meant that the plan did not go forward.
Included in the plan was a national network of highways of around 3 000 km corresponding to approximately half of the length of the network of Main (IP) and CPR (IC) Routes.
This plan was created by Decree -Law No 222/98 of 17 July, and amended by Rectification Declaration No 19-D/98 of 31 October, by Law No 98/99 of 26 July and by Decree -Law No 182/2003 of 16 August.
