has played an increasingly important role. Estimates of the road network in 2009 ranged upwards from 55,000 kilometers, but it is an inadequate network for the size of the country. Asphalted allweather roads, excluding paved streets in cities and towns, amounted to roughly 3,600 kilometers, of which the Khartoum–Port Sudan road, the most important highway, accounted for almost 1,200 kilometers. There were about 3,740 kilometers of gravel roads and an estimated 45,000 kilometers of mainly seasonal earth roads and sand tracks, about half of which were classified as feeder roads. The roads were generally in poor condition in 2009–10 but usable all year round, although travel might be interrupted at times during the rainy season. Most of the gravel roads in South Sudan became unusable after being heavily mined by the insurgent forces of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). The government favored the railroads until the early 1970s, believing that they better met the country's requirements for transportation and that the primary purpose of roads was to act as feeders to the rail system. The railroads were also a profitable government operation. Disillusion with railroad performance led to a new emphasis on roads in a readjustment of the Five-Year Plan in 1973—the so-called Interim Action Program—and a decision to encourage competition between rail and road transport as the best way to improve services. Paving of the dry-weather road between Khartoum and Port Sudan via AlGedaref and Kassala was the most significant immediate step. Other important road-paving projects of the early 1980s included a road from Wad Madani to Sinnar and an extension from Sinnar to Kosti on the White Nile completed in 1984. Since then the paved road was extended to Umm Rawabah and Al-Obeid. A number of main gravel roads radiating from Juba were also improved. These included roads to the towns southwest of Juba and a road to the Ugandan border. In addition, the government built a gravel all-weather road east of Juba that reached the Kenyan border and connected with the Kenyan road system. All of these improvements radiating from Juba, however, were vitiated by the civil war, in which the roads were extensively mined by the SPLA and the bridges destroyed. In addition, because roads were not maintained, they deteriorated seriously. New asphalt roads to the north and south of Khartoum had been completed or were under construction in the mid-2000s, as well as new