Transport

Since olden times roads from Vilnius, the old capital of Lithuania, led to distant European countries. For many centuries these roads were a primary concern of many generations of people and their contribution to the future.

The highway Vilnius-Kaunas built in 1970 has also become the Lithuanian road leading to the West. The white-haired veterans who built it say today that this was the road of their youth, which did not and does not have any right to grow old. Actually it never grew old, it was constantly renewed, and with time became only younger. Trough the efforts of the people and veterans who worked there four decades ago, the Vilnius-Kaunas highway has become a ray of light that led Lithuania to trans-European perspective and the modern future.

It is already today that the highway Vilnius-Kaunas is becoming the highway of the future, which will decorate hospitable gateway of the city of Kaunas with modern engineering constructions, and having crossed the reconstructed bridge over the Neris River will run to the Baltic Sea coast.
Four decades ago a small number of vehicles moved along the then most modern highway Vilnius-Kaunas. The highway, having surrounded many settlements and having crossed the rivers, in 1970 linked the largest cities of Lithuania.

In post-war years, with motorcar traffic intensity increasing, the problem of traffic permeability of the highway Vilnius-Kaunas became especially acute – the old road could not ensure safe traffic. The idea of building the Vilnius-Kaunas highway later extending it as far as Klaipėda was put forward. The then Minister of Transport and Highways Vladislovas Martinaitis promoted and supported this idea.

The road was built from both ends of the section – road workers moved from Vilnius towards Kaunas and from Kaunas towards Vilnius approximately at the same time.

The road built has become the beginning of the highway running from the capital of Lithuania to the Baltic Sea. That was the first highway of that type in the Soviet Union.

It is not a secret that at that time many leading employees of the Republic doubted the necessity of that highway. Vladislovas Martinaitis had to persuade all those who doubted and waited for instructions “from above”. It was necessary to look for funds and materials to build the highway. It was for the benefit of the new highway that improvement of the Lithuanian road network had to be refused temporarily and the funds allocated to road repairs were shifted to that construction.

The project of the said highway, which complied with the then motorcar traffic and road building conditions, was designed by the specialists of the Lithuanian State Motorway Research and Designing Institute Lietkelprojektas in 1961. Each traffic direction in the highway had two 3.75-meter-wide traffic lanes, which kept traffic travelling in different directions apart by a green dividing strip, junctions with other roads were built at different levels.

Designers of the highway foresaw and implemented measures that helped traffic to be organised better, and which provided its participants with necessary information that would help them avoid accidents: marking the highway according to the standards in effect; marking its edges with signalling bollards within a distance provided for by technical norms; arranging and placing road signs according to the scheme announced by organisations.

More than 100 specialists investigated and designed the highway Vilnius-Kaunas. Lionginas Antanavičius, chief engineer of the project of the Road Division of the Institute supervised the work. Structures of pavements of the highway were designed having assessed a 20-year traffic intensity prospect.

Vilnius Road Building Region No. 4, later renamed Bridge Building Board No. 2 (TSV-2), carried out the first works of building the highway in žemieji Paneriai in 1960. Road builders started work with the road section where traffic intensity was highest – 8,1–10 kilometres in žemieji Paneriai.

At the very beginning, when building an exit from Vilnius, road workers understood that hard work awaited them – it was necessary to dig deep pits and broaden the causeways. They built the second roadway of the highway next to the former road as far as the settlement of Grigiškės. It was not easy to negotiate a pit that was more than 30 meters deep at kilometre 18. The work superintendent Alis Vidūnas supervised these works. The team of Vilnius Bridge Building Board No. 2 completed 27.8 per cent of works on the highway Vilnius–Kaunas, built and gave 26,2 kilometres of the highway for use.

The team of Kaunas Road Building Region No. 1 (later renamed Kaunas Bridge Building Board No. 1) started construction works of the highway from Kaunas to Vilnius. Within six years Kaunas Bridge Building Board No. 1 completed 36.7 per cent of works, built and gave 35,2 kilometres of road for use in the section of the highway Vilnius-Kaunas. The Bridge Construction Section headed by Alfonsas Meškinis carried out large and complicated works. Workers of the Bridge Construction Section built lots of unique constructions of that time. New ferro-concrete bridge and viaduct structures with prestressing steel bars were started to be introduced. Viaducts of complicated structures were built without any bearing supports in the dividing strip.

People of the Board built second bridges over the Neris and Kruna Rivers, viaducts on Biruliškiai, Rumšiškės, Žiežmariai and Bačkonys junctions on the highway Vilnius-Kaunas. They prepared the roadbed, foundations, built pavements.

At the same time Vievis Road Building Board (KSV-6) started works in the middle of the highway Vilnius-Kaunas. The team of this Road Board completed as much as one fourth of works, built and gave 25 kilometres of the highway for use.

It was necessary to prepare and deliver a lot of gravel and crushed rock to the building sites. For that purpose the Board reconstructed gravel sorting out and crushing facilities in Kazokiškės gravel-pit, organised work in three shifts in the gravel-pit and prepared the necessary amount of gravel and crushed rock in time. According to the data of the measurements made at that time, the team of Vievis Road Building Board laid the most even asphalt concrete pavement.

To ensure a more rapid rate of works Ukmergė Road Building Board No. 2 (KSV-2) that was farther from the highway and whose road workers worked in Žiežmariai district was invited to build the highway. There a roadbed was prepared and foundations of the road were laid. The team of the Board carried out 11.6 per cent of works in that section of the highway. The roadbed made by Ukmergė Road Building Board and the foundations of the road laid helped the asphalt concrete pavement to be laid faster, the highway to be completed and given for use on time.

Every day on average about 1000 people worked in construction preparing materials and making structures. Through their efforts three bridges, 17 viaducts were built, 15 modern junctions were equipped, 171 ferro-concrete underpasses were erected. A total of 5 million cubic meters of soil was dug up, 690 thousand cubic metres of sand, 540 thousand cubic metres of gravel, 262 thousand cubic metres of crushed rock were poured.

People had to work in deep peat-bogs, dig earth abounding in springs, look for ways of how to use overdried soil for causeways, how to better built long sections of earth roadbed in the territories that have become boggy.

Under those extreme conditions engineers of the Road Building Trust together with Road Boards produced and implemented many technological solutions. A high level of road building mechanisation, its new effective methods helped them carry out the highway building works on a large scale. One of them was the flow method based on productive co-operation. Its essence consists in that all labour force and material resources are concentrated in a single flow rallying the forces of several Road Building Boards.

The road builders made use of powerful industry of road pavement and bridge construction – asphalt concrete and ferro-concrete plants, road building mechanisms. Hydraulic excavators, scrapers, slope levelling machines, tractors of various types, motorcars, asphalt pavers were widely used in building the highway.

When building this highway a lot has been done to make it comply with the motorcar traffic safety requirements, to make it comfortable to the drivers and look aesthetic. Original autopavilions, green plantations according to an individual project decorated the highway. The highway Vilnius-Kaunas was completed and given for use on 27 October 1970. The price of building the highway Vilnius-Kaunas totalled 18 million roubles.

After Lithuania re-established its independence, highway A1 Vilnius-Kaunas has become international, and today it belongs to transport corridor IX and is a part of the trans-European road network TEN-T. Transport corridor IX B is the most significant Lithuanian transport highway running in the east-west direction.

Listing the already done work and remembering and honouring the road workers-veterans who did it, today we clearly understand that highway A1 will have to undergo many changes in the future. Assessing the present condition of highway A1 Vilnius-Kaunas-Klaipėda and a rapidly growing number of vehicles, as well as the fact that this highway has to ensure a harmonious transit rhythm, feasibility studies were made, which will enable us to preserve the status of the highway in Kaunas-Klaipėda section and to reconstruct the section Vilnius-Kaunas according to the requirements set to highways.

When reconstructing this section where vehicles will be allowed to travel at a great speed, it will be necessary to ensure safe and continuous traffic of the means of transport and in protective zones to apply especially strict limitations on the development of the territories, which border on the highway. Connecting roads will be built for the current objects or objects planned to be built next to the highway Vilnius-Kaunas, or traffic will be directed to the roads of local significance. Objects of serving residents of the surrounding territories and travellers will have to be situated beyond the borders of the highway leaving the possibility of using alternative roads.

Such work as broadening the road pavement, building junctions of different levels, pedestrian crossings, lighting, etc. is already being carried out harmonising it with the implementation of the status of the highway: for example, works of the first stage of reconstruction of Grigiškės hub were completed in June 2010. This year it is planned to start the second stage, upon completion of which in 2011 this section of the highway will comply with the international standards, will ensure better and safer traffic conditions.

Today due to its strategic position the highway Vilnius–Kaunas is an important part of the international transport corridors of the whole of Europe. It is not only examples of history but also ever-growing needs of drivers, as well as economic interests of the country’s economy that obligate us to modernise it and make it safer.