How much space do roads take up?

Question

If you could chop up all the roads in the UK and lay the pieces out next to each other, about how big would the total area of tarmac be? Or in other words, what percentage of Britain is covered in road?

Answer 1

According to Wikipedia there are 46632 km main roads, 3477 km Motorways and 342000 km other roads. Assuming avarage width of 25 meters for main roads, 35 m for motorways and 15 meters for other roads  (these widths are guesstimates) the total comes to 6417 square kilometers. That's about 2.5% of Britain.

I may be off with my widths but I would say it's something between 2% and 4%.

Answer 2

just a guess, i would say about 65%

not sure about it but i'm close