Transportation in South America

In an area the size of South America, an efficient system of transportation is necessary for the development of the hinterland, the expansion of national markets, and the integration of the different national economic systems. Unlike North America, South America still does not have an adequately integrated transportation network. Significant efforts have been made to improve both the connections within countries and the linkages between them.

South America has an extensive and rapidly expanding network of roads. In many countries, however, only a relatively small percentage of the roads are paved, and in the most remote areas they may be barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass easily. The remainder of the system consists of improved roads or simply of dirt roads. In developing national segments of international highways, particular attention has been paid to road-integration projects. The Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank were heavily engaged in some of these projects, as, for example, in the construction of the bridge links joining Paraguay and Argentina, Argentina and Uruguay, and Paraguay and Brazil (all these links were completed by the late 1970s).

A road linking Venezuela and Brazil allows north-south movement through the Amazon basin. Brazil continues to have the largest network of roads belonging to the Pan-American Highway system, which extends throughout the Americas. Because of the size of the continent and the immense variety of physical environments, an efficient road network is of utmost importance. Roads not only provide the primary passenger routes for the great majority of people but also offer the most cost-effective means of moving goods within countries. In all South American countries, truck transportation has taken an increasingly large share of the volume of goods carried by land. In addition to stimulating economic development, routes such as the Transamazonian Highway and the Marginal de la Selva Highway linking the countries on the east side of the Andes, constructed since the 1970s, also represent attempts to spur development.

The results of this effort, however, have been mixed, because making land available for settlement has often caused considerable ecological damage to the tropical forests.

In most South American countries railways have lost their dominant position as the major mode of transportation and have been replaced by the road networks that have developed rapidly since the 1960s. Moreover, rail transport is plagued by operational problems as well as by obsolete equipment. Almost all lines are single-tracked, which makes traffic slow and discourages passenger service. Many countries have two or more track gauges, which impedes the efficient integration of the rail system.

South America railways. irtsociety.com

Until the 1980s, virtually all railways were owned by the state. Since then, governments, as part of their overall efforts to privatize their national economies, have divested themselves of a large percentage of publicly owned railroads. This has led to the elimination of a huge number of passenger routes as well as the reduction of much of the freight component. Britannica