Spring Thaw Period May Correct Your Travel Route

Due to spring thaw, some roads cannot withstand heavy vehicle loads and seasonal load restrictions are put into effect on some Lithuanian state significance regional and national road sections. However, these restrictions do not apply to cars on the mentioned roads.

According to the data of February 26, traffic of heavy goods vehicles has been restricted on some road sections in Alytus, Kaunas, Šiauliai regions. The total length of restricted load road sections is 44.20 km.

This year deep winter may cause greater spring flooding of roads, which will increase the restrictions imposed.

SE Lithuanian Road Administration (later – the Road Administration) reminds road users to plan their travel routes in advance. Information on the exact road sections and load restrictions is constantly being updated at eismoinfo.lt.

The Director of the Road Administration Remigijus Lipkevičius states that one of the vital concerns in spring is to protect temporarily weaker road pavement (e.g. gravel roads), so that roads would be usable after spring thaw.

Traffic of heavy goods vehicles is frequently restricted on regional roads since their pavement is the weakest. Therefore, agricultural machinery, logging trucks and other heavy goods vehicles exceeding the permitted total mass and axle loads limits are among the most damaging ones.

Each year based on the winter weather conditions, i.e. precipitation, air temperature, freeze penetration etc., the length of load restricted road sections varies. In  spring 2018, it was 2,500 km,  in 2019, ca 0,900 km and in 2020 traffic was not restricted at all due to spring thaw. It should be pointed out that there are ca 21,000 km of state roads in Lithuania.