# [RN] Niger | road infrastructure



## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Apparently there was no thread about the country of Niger, so I've created one. 

On 3 August 2021, there was an official inauguration of the paving of the Tanout - Zinder Highway, which is numbered as Route Nationale 11 (RN11). A 138 kilometer stretch has been paved between those two towns, the entire N11 is 560 kilometers long and runs from Agadez to the border with Nigeria. It is considered a part of the Trans-Sahara Highway.

The paving project was done over a period of 48 months and has cost 34 billion CFA. It was financed by the European Development Fund and the works were done by an French-Italian company AIC Progetti.






Le Président Bazoum inaugure la route Zinder-Tanout, un maillon de la transsaharienne | Agence Nigérienne de Presse







www.anp.ne







__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1422676438084431884
A 40 kilometer segment was completed in October 2020


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1311874348744138755
The northernmost part of N11 south of Agadez was rehabilitated in 2019


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1113449166762586112


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

I dug a little deeper into the Agadez - Zinder - Nigeria border highway, also known as Route Nationale 11 (RN 11). It is a 560 kilometer north-south highway in a mostly remote region of Sahara Desert and Sahel plains. 

Agadez is the main city in the Sahara Desert in Niger. It is on the junction of the Trans-Sahara Highway and the road to Niamey, giving it great importance. It is also the main access point to the uranium mines in Arlit, which are the main export product of Niger in value. The U.S. military has recently built an airbase in Agadez.

The Agadez - Zinder Highway has originally been paved between 1986 and 1991: https://www.afdb.org/sites/default/...iinder-agadez-road-section-reconstruction.pdf

The Zinder - Nigeria border section was paved around 2015-2019. The northern part of the highway had degraded, probably to the point that it wasn't a paved road anymore. As mentioned in the previous post, the 68 kilometer segment between Agadez and Tiguidit was renovated in 2019. The 138 kilometer Tanout to Zinder segment was completed this week. And construction on the 226 kilometer Tiguidit - Tanout segment has commenced in February 2021: Niger : lancement des travaux de réhabilitation d'un tronçon de la route transsaharienne dans le nord du pays_French.news.cn

This means that in a short period of time the entire 560 kilometer route from Agadez to the Nigeria border has been freshly repaved.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Works are underway to pave the road from N'Guigme to the border of Chad, along the north side of Lake Chad. This is basically an extension of the Nigerien Route Nationale N1. There is also a paving project on the Chadian side, to create the first paved road between both countries.



__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1516825158958342150
Evidently, the works started in October 2020






Diffa : Reprise des travaux de la route Diffa N'Guigmi frontière Tchad et lancement des travaux de la route Maine Soroa - Gaidam | Agence Nigérienne de Presse







www.anp.ne


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

I found this map of the road network of Niger in 1975. It was in a JICA report about a road project at that time. 

Notice that the route numbering system was already in place by then.


Niger réseau routier 1975-1 by European Roads, on Flickr


Niger réseau routier 1975-2 by European Roads, on Flickr


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## VITORIA MAN (Jan 31, 2013)

Le pont de "l'amitié Chine-Niger" by Gustave Deghilage, en Flickr


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

A bridge across the Niger River opened on 12 November 2020. Located between Farié and Gotheye, it is the first bridge across the Niger outside of Niamey.

Location: OpenStreetMap


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## AnelZ (Jan 25, 2013)

Is the bridge too short or is the river already on a high point on these pictures?


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

This article states that the Arlit - Assamaka road has been completed in May 2022. This is a new paved road through the Sahara Desert to the border of Algeria. This would mean that the entire Trans-Sahara Highway is now paved from Algiers to Lagos. 

Not many news reports point to the Trans-Sahara Highway now being entirely paved though.









Niger/Infrastructures routières : les travaux du tronçon Arlit-Assamaka bientôt réceptionnés


C’est en principe le 20 mai 2022 qu’aura lieu la réception provisoire des travaux du marché N°2014/078/DGGT/DMP-DSP relatif à l’aménagement et le bitumage de la route Arlit-Assamaka lot 1(PK0-PK 12…




airinfoagadez.com





Also interesting is this photo, it includes a route number: N11. Not N25 as it is displayed on Google Maps or the 1975 map I posted upthread. This would make N11 the main north-south corridor from Algeria to Nigeria and N25 only an east-west route from Niamey to Agadez. This actually makes more sense than the assumption that N25 would run from Niamey to the Algerian border.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Niger has put significant effort into paving the national road network over the past decade. A substantial number of previously unpaved (or even non-existing) _routes nationales_ were paved between 2010 and 2020.

Niger has 30 _routes nationales_ (N1 to N30), most of those in the south and west of the country, which has the largest amount of towns.

Paved road length in Niger:

1960105 km1970488 km19802,673 km19903,304 km20003,761 km20103,952 km20204,908 km

So you can see that Niger only had 105 kilometers of paved road at independence, making it one of the least developed French colonies (basically only Chad had fewer roads)

Uranium mining began in 1971 and led to significant government revenues. A significant amount of roads were built during the 1970s, it saw the largest expansion of paved roads in a decade, expanding the paved road network by a factor of 5. Large parts of N1, the main east-west road, were paved at that time, as well as several spurs from N1.

The pace of road construction dropped significantly after 1980 due to a glut in commodity prices (which coincided with the oil glut at that time). It took around 30 years for things to improve. A significant amount of the remaining _route nationale_ network was paved from 2010 to 2020, with some project continuing to this day.

One of the most interesting projects I found was N25 from Abala to Tahoua. This route already appeared as planned on the 1975 map above, but was only built as an entirely new road over the past few years. There was no improved dirt road or all-weather road, so this shortened the route from Niamey to Tahoua (a major urban center) and Agadez significantly. A partial bypass has even been built in Tahoua.

Another interesting project is an extension of N1 from N'Guigmi to the border with Chad, this is a new international paved road along the north side of Lake Chad. Chad has also been constructing a paved road on their side to N'Djamena. I'm not sure if that project has already been completed. It's basically the first functional road between Niger and Chad. Alternative routes through northeastern Nigeria are not paved.


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## verreme (May 16, 2012)

^^ Paved roads should also improve security, as they are easier to patrol unlike dirt tracks where only locals know how to get around. I hope this has a positive effect on an economy that's severly hampered by terrorist activity.


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