Fuel constraints and the near absence of private automobiles have relegated road transportation to a secondary role. The road network was estimated between 23,000 and 30,000 kilometers in 1990, of which only 1,717 kilometers--7.5 percent--are paved; the rest are of dirt, crushed stone, or gravel, and are poorly maintained (see fig. 8). There are three major multilane highways: a 200-kilometer expressway connecting P'yongyang and Wnsan on the east coast, a forty-three-kilometer expressway connecting P'yongyang and its port, Namp'o, and a four-lane 100- kilometer highway linking P'yongyang and Kaesng. The overwhelming majority of the estimated 264,000 vehicles in use in 1990 were for the military. Rural bus service connects all villages, and cities have bus and tram services. In 1973 an extravagantly outfitted, two-line 30.5-kilometer subway system was completed in P'yongyang.
Data as of June 1993