Brazilian Highway System - Growth, Net Density, Importance and Problems

Growth, Net Density, Importance and Problems

In 1953, Adhemar de Barros, then governor of São Paulo, finished Via Anchieta, linking Santos to São Paulo, and Via Anhanguera, linking São Paulo to Campinas, two highways using the most modern standards of that time. It would be the major accomplishment on the area for years.

When Juscelino Kubitschek assumed the presidency, he created subsidies to bring multinationals like Volkswagen to Brazil and created thousand of miles of roads, linking distant regions of the country. Most of these roads follow poor standards, but they created links where there were none. The military presidents would mostly follow these same standards to expand the system. The exceptions would be the modern highways built by the São Paulo State Government.

In 1967, the first stretch of Via Castelo Branco (SP-280), a 2X3 and 2X2 limited-access highway built at par with standards drawn by FHWA, linking the city of São Paulo to the western region of the São Paulo State, was finished, creating a standard for other highways in the same state. In the same year, the Via Dutra was modernized, allowing a fast and modern trip between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

The country would reach 200,000 km paved in 2000. Between 1995 and 2005 three major highways (BR-101, linking Curitiba to Porto Alegre; Via Regis Bittencourt, linking São Paulo to Curitiba; and Via Fernão Dias, linking São Paulo to Belo Horizonte) were modernized. Until then, most of these highways were known for their high mortality rate due to traffic accidents.

The Southern and Southeast regions of Brazil are heavily connected by highways, most of them paved; the North region is the least connected with paved highways due to the presence of the Amazon rainforest. In this region, highways, when they are present, generally are unpaved. Manaus, for example, has no major paved highways connecting it to any other city but Boa Vista in the north.

Highways are the main means of transportation in Brazil, both in number of movement of passengers and movement of freight and goods.

The major problem of highways as the national arterial system is that it is expensive to transport freight: trains are much cheaper, generate less pollution and create no traffic problems as trucks do. As of 2003, Brazil had only 24,000 km of railways, used mainly for mineral resources transportation (mines to seaport), while trucks were responsible for almost every other means of freight transportation.

Another significant problem that Brazilian federal highways face is deterioration because of weather conditions and heavy usage. The government's investment in highway maintenance often falls short of the necessary amounts, resulting in the lack of maintenance of thousands of kilometers of federal highways, especially the minor ones. Potholes and wavy asphalt are common on several highways. Because of this difficulty, the government decided to grant parts of highways to private companies who will maintain the highway in exchange for the right to charge tolls. The problem with this partial solution is explained in the section below.