ABSTRACT
The development of the European highway network was not a purposeful course of action based on a central system-building power coordinating a long-term roadmap and a balanced timetable. The first motorways erected and run by private Italian engineering companies resembled a patchwork, and, in the end, failed because of economic problems. The German public-private partnership HaFraBa did not get off the ground owing to governmental blockage. Neither venture had the political and financial power to create a nationwide network. In a parallel to railway history, only national road authorities implemented by governments were able to build wide-ranging highway and secondary road networks within a manageable time, because they acted as forceful system builders, backed by parliaments and financed by national budgets. Thus every European country followed its own plan towards an adequate road infrastructure. National decisions to develop and construct trunk road systems more or less followed existing domestic railway connections as well as internalised patterns of ancient cross-country roads.
