From the beginnings to the institucionalization of the road transport system in Brazil (1893-1945)

Abstract

From the arrival of the first automotive vehicle in Brazil in 1893 until the government of Artur Bernardes (1922-26), little more than three decades had passed in the pioneering phase of the road transport system in Brazil, in which public transport policies had been more focused on the rail system. The article works with the hypothesis that it is only possible to talk about the institutionalization of a road transport system in the country after the Washington Luís government (1926-30), since the creation in 1927 of both the Special Fund for Roads Construction and the Federal Highways Commission (CERF) definitely placed it among the priorities of the federal government. During the Vargas Era (1930-45), when the National Department of Highways (DNER) was created in 1937, and the National Highway Plan (PRN) was implemented in 1944, the road transport system gained strength in political and institutional terms and gradually entered the collective imagination of part of the Brazilian population, acquiring territorial capillarity and an economic base.