Road maintenance, Finland
The Finish road network has a total length of 454,000 km. The State-maintained section – 78,000 km – consists of main roads class I and II, motorways and regional and connecting roads. In 2019, approximately 1,800 km of the State-maintained road network were repaved.
That figure was estimated to increase to 4,200 km during 2020, but all indications are that this level will be exceeded by a significant margin. One explanation of this increase is that the roads were in relatively poor condition at the beginning of 2020 because of the low level of financing in the preceding years.
Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic meant that additional financing could be invested in the infrastructure in order to stimulate the national economy. Finally, the low price of oil resulted in it being possible to undertake more maintenance initiatives without it costing more.