The road network of Argentina is made up of all land surfaces, public or private, where pedestrians and vehicles circulate, which is signposted under the jurisdiction of the national, provincial or municipal authorities responsible for the application of Argentine traffic laws under the management of the National Road Directorate.
In 2019, the Argentine road network had 436,825 km of roads, which can be broken down according to the material with which they are made:[1].
Road networks
• - Paved Roads: 36,727 km
Single carriageway: 33,928 km
Highways: 1,709 km
Highways: 1,090 km.
• - Improved Roads: 2,387 km.
• - Dirt Roads: 824 km.
• - Paved roads: 44,861 km.
• - Improved Roads 39,234 km.
• - Dirt roads 114,194 km.
Municipal and neighborhood roads: > 500,000 KM.
• - Provincial Dirt Roads: 25,000 km.
• - Municipal Dirt Roads: 125,000 km (est).
Argentine roads can be broken down according to their jurisdiction:[1].
• - 40,332 km belong to the primary backbone network with national jurisdiction,[2].
• - 198,289 km are managed by the provincial jurisdiction,[3] and.
• - 500,000 km form the tertiary network administered by municipalities or communes.[3].
It is undoubtedly a complex network to which the railway network must naturally be added, which completes the Argentine transportation system.
75% of vehicular traffic is carried out on paved roads; An average traffic of 500 vehicles per day circulates on 95% of the road network. Approximately 5,000 km of the total network are expressways (highways and expressways) and more than 4,500 vehicles circulate on them per day.[1].
The national road network has been built over the last five decades; In 1950 there were approximately 7000 km of paved roads and 7000 km of improved roads, generally gravel. Provincial networks, of the total 60,000 km of paved or improved roads, currently no less than 85% have been built in this period. Through National Decree 1020 of 2009, the OCCOVI (Road Concessions Control Body) became dependent on the DNV (National Road Directorate). This body had the power to supervise compliance with the concession contracts for almost 10,000 km of national roads with high traffic density.
Audit of urban avenues
Introduction
The road network of Argentina is made up of all land surfaces, public or private, where pedestrians and vehicles circulate, which is signposted under the jurisdiction of the national, provincial or municipal authorities responsible for the application of Argentine traffic laws under the management of the National Road Directorate.
In 2019, the Argentine road network had 436,825 km of roads, which can be broken down according to the material with which they are made:[1].
Road networks
• - Paved Roads: 36,727 km
Single carriageway: 33,928 km
Highways: 1,709 km
Highways: 1,090 km.
• - Improved Roads: 2,387 km.
• - Dirt Roads: 824 km.
• - Paved roads: 44,861 km.
• - Improved Roads 39,234 km.
• - Dirt roads 114,194 km.
Municipal and neighborhood roads: > 500,000 KM.
• - Provincial Dirt Roads: 25,000 km.
• - Municipal Dirt Roads: 125,000 km (est).
Argentine roads can be broken down according to their jurisdiction:[1].
• - 40,332 km belong to the primary backbone network with national jurisdiction,[2].
• - 198,289 km are managed by the provincial jurisdiction,[3] and.
• - 500,000 km form the tertiary network administered by municipalities or communes.[3].
It is undoubtedly a complex network to which the railway network must naturally be added, which completes the Argentine transportation system.
75% of vehicular traffic is carried out on paved roads; An average traffic of 500 vehicles per day circulates on 95% of the road network. Approximately 5,000 km of the total network are expressways (highways and expressways) and more than 4,500 vehicles circulate on them per day.[1].
The national road network has been built over the last five decades; In 1950 there were approximately 7000 km of paved roads and 7000 km of improved roads, generally gravel. Provincial networks, of the total 60,000 km of paved or improved roads, currently no less than 85% have been built in this period. Through National Decree 1020 of 2009, the OCCOVI (Road Concessions Control Body) became dependent on the DNV (National Road Directorate). This body had the power to supervise compliance with the concession contracts for almost 10,000 km of national roads with high traffic density.
During the administration of President Néstor Kirchner, a National Road Plan was launched: from 2003 to 2015, the National Government made a strong investment in infrastructure works that allowed the construction of 1,300 km of new roads, paving 4,100 km of national routes, and covering the entire national road network with maintenance works. In addition, coverage of maintenance works was extended to the entire paved road network, when in 2003 only 50% of it was covered. Thanks to these investments, between 2003 and 2015 there was a 130% growth in the Argentine road network.[4] In the last years of the last century, Argentina dictated various regulations aimed at road financing, but specific financing was consolidated starting in 1931, when a 10% increase on the retail price of gasoline was ordered, “on a one-time basis,” for that purpose.
A year later, the National Highway Law was passed, which created the National Highway Fund, which included the figure of highway financing with fixed-sum taxes on fuels and lubricants. This law gave rise to the National Road Directorate, which since then has been the central administration body in charge of planning, building and maintaining the national road network. In the first two decades of the Fund's existence, there were intense alterations in its operation: the 15% tax on the sales price of lubricants was not applied until 1943, and the contributions from the National Treasury were transferred erratically and at levels lower than those projected for that purpose. This situation forced the fuel tax to be increased at the end of the 1930s.
The National Road Fund was cut on several occasions. In 1951, the DNV's percentage of participation in the Energy Fund created in 1948 was replaced by a fixed tax on fuel charged to said Fund. Meanwhile, towards the end of the fifties, the National Complementary Road Fund was created, financed by a tax on tires and vehicles whose weight exceeded 12 tons. The objective of this Supplementary Fund was to improve the service provided on 15,000 kilometers of trunk roads over a period of ten years.
As of 2006, the number of national routes is 118, to which we must add some complementary routes. As of December 30, 2005, the network was made up of 33,235 km of paved routes, 3,577 km of gravel and 1,500 of dirt.[5][6] The complaint was presented by Iguacel after an audit carried out in the first weeks of 2016 by two engineers and an accountant appointed by Iguacel, which determined that the prices of the works were market prices, that the proportion of works received by Austral Construction did not denote any anomaly, since the companies that already operate in the district have an advantage over other companies by not having to transport machinery and personnel over long distances and that the delay and price adjustments in the works were normal and were due to unforeseen events that appeared in the course of the work (appearance of oil or gas pipes or electric or telephone cables, climatic circumstances or land that had not been expropriated, etc.). The audit concluded that the difference between what was made and what was paid was only 0.1%. The auditors also highlighted that if the public works carried out in other provinces had been audited, it would have been observed that, as in Santa Cruz, companies from the district usually concentrate the majority of the work tendered.[7] During the development of the oral and public trial throughout 2020, various witnesses, including those who audited the work, confirmed the non-existence of irregularities.[8].
In 2016, President Mauricio Macri (owner of the majority of tolls in Argentina)[9][10] decreed a 500% increase in all tolls on national routes and highways.[11].
The planning and supervision of the Argentine road network is under the control of the National Directorate of Roads, Provincial Directorates of Roads, and other control entities with specific purposes, such as the ECB (entity of the Buenos Aires suburbs), the OCRABA (Organization of Control of the Access Network to Buenos Aires), whose functions partially overlap with those of the DNV (National Directorate of Roads) "National Directorate of Roads (Argentina)") and the DPV (Provincial Road Directorates)).
Considering that Argentina has a continental area of 2.8 million square kilometers, it can be concluded that the country has an underdeveloped road structure, which is due in part to its small population, a problem that is aggravated by the fact of the high demographic concentration in certain areas.
Argentina's road network is divided into trunk, secondary and tertiary roads.
• - Trunk road network. With a length of 40,332 km, they are those roads that have national jurisdiction. National routes, highways and concessioned highways constitute part of this network.
• - Secondary road network. whose extension is 198,289 km, it is made up of all the roads under provincial jurisdiction. All Argentine provincial routes are part of this network.
• - Tertiary road network. totaling about 500,000 km, it is made up of all the roads of municipal or communal ownership.
Trunk road network
The trunk road network in Argentina forms the most important and vital road infrastructure in the country. It is made up of the set of national routes whose function in the transportation system is to link the large centers of production and consumption and the national ports, which are the main means of entry and exit of merchandise from the country.
The national route network, with a length of 40,000 km, are the roads under national jurisdiction and make up the trunk road network. The number of national routes is 118, to which are added the so-called complementary routes. In 2005, the network was made up of 33,235 km of paved routes, 3,577 km of gravel, and 1,500 of dirt.[12] It includes 10,000 km of routes that have been granted in toll concessions to private companies, which are consortia formed mainly by construction companies.
Given the lack of financial capacity to maintain the road network, since the 1990s, the Argentine Government decided to give concessions to private operators of the national routes with the highest amount of traffic, around 10,000 km of the network. The busiest sections of these networks were grouped into "road corridors" that were offered in concession through public bidding.
These road corridors, together with the accesses to the cities of Buenos Aires and Córdoba, add up to just over 9,000 km of the main national routes, highways and provincial highways.
Secondary road network
The provincial route network makes up the country's secondary road network, which is made up of 179,000 km of routes and roads under provincial jurisdiction. Each province has a provincial road directorate, responsible for the maintenance, expansion and improvement of provincial routes.
The Provincial Road Directorate of Buenos Aires, based in the city of La Plata (capital of the province of Buenos Aires), has a hierarchy equivalent to the DNV (National Road Directorate). The province of Buenos Aires, with 36,000 km of provincial routes, brings together more than 20% of the country's secondary network, and with its 9,000 km of paved routes it concentrates almost 30% of the entire Argentine paved secondary network.
Provincial roads are financed with resources from the national treasury, with own resources, and with funds provided by international financial entities.
The items that the National Treasury assigns to road construction and maintenance are sent to the DNV (National Road Directorate), which distributes the funds through a federal co-participation system, which includes and weights various criteria such as:
• - surface area of each province.
• - number of inhabitants.
• - length of the road network of each province.
• - own funds contributed by each province for road maintenance.
Tertiary road network
It is made up of roads, streets and routes that depend on the municipalities or communes, which together add up to around 285,000 km, of which 100,000 are in the province of Buenos Aires. Given the characteristics of demographic concentration that the country has, two types of municipalities are differentiated: "urban" and "rural."
• - "Urban municipalities", among them is the city of Buenos Aires and the surrounding municipalities, which make up Greater Buenos Aires, which has 3000 km of streets in an area of 200 km². The cities of Córdoba and Rosario also stand out. Following a policy of decentralization, the Nation has transferred the administration and maintenance of some routes to the provinces and individuals, and the provinces, in turn, have transferred the maintenance of routes from provincial jurisdiction to the municipalities.
• - "Rural municipalities" are characterized by having a small population in a very large territory. Generally, the majority of the population is found in the headwaters. Rural roads called "alleys" consist only of compaction of the base soil, being improved in some cases with gravel or some type of stabilization.
Despite having very low traffic rates, municipal rural roads have significant importance for the economic life of the country, since they form the capillaries through which agricultural products for domestic consumption and export are sent to large cities, which has led the National Government to try to recover 60,000 km of natural roads.
Bioceanic corridors
Central interoceanic route
This future corridor will be an interoceanic communication route that will connect the ports of the Pacific (Coquimbo, Chile) and the Atlantic (Porto Alegre, Brazil) passing through the central region of Argentina, through cities such as Santa Fe "Santa Fe (Capital)") and Córdoba "Córdoba (Argentina)"), whose last urban unit is the second most important tertiary center within Argentina. This corridor will have as its main component the tunnels in the border Paso del Agua Negra. It is a “physical-territorial” instrument that would streamline trade between the countries of the Southern American Cone (Mercosur and Chile).
• - Porto Alegre.
• - São Gabriel.
• - Uruguayan.
• - Free Passage.
• - Currents.
• - Paraná "Paraná (Argentina)").
• - Santa Fe "City of Santa Fe (Argentina)").
• - San Francisco "San Francisco (Córdoba)").
• - Córdoba "Córdoba (Argentina)").
• - Carlos Paz.
• - Chamical.
• - San José de Jáchal.
• - Vicuña "Vicuña (Chile)").
• - La Serena "La Serena (Chile)").
• - Coquimbo.
Mercosur Chile Axis (IIRSA)[13]
Main cities that will be part of Chile:
• - Valdivia.
• - San Antonio "San Antonio (Chile)").
• - Santiago de Chile.
Main cities that will be part of Argentina:
• - Mendoza "Mendoza (Argentina)").
• - San Luis "San Luis (Argentina)").
• - Buenos Aires.
Main cities that will be part of Uruguay:
• - Sacramento Colony.
• - Montevideo.
• - Rio Branco.
Main cities that will be part of Brazil:
• - Porto Alegre.
• - Curitiba.
• - São Paulo.
• - Rio de Janeiro.
Main cities that will be part of Argentina:
• - Zarate.
• - Free Passage.
Main cities that will be part of Brazil:
• - Uruguayan.
• - Porto Alegre.
Main cities that will be part of Uruguay:
• - Montevideo.
• - Rivera.
Main cities that will be part of Brazil:
• - Rosario del Sud.
• - Santa Maria "Santa Maria (Río Grande del Sur)").
• - Passo Fundo.
• - Curitiba.
Southern Corridor (IIRSA)[14]
It will have two branches:
• - Bahía Blanca.
• - Viedma.
• - San Carlos de Bariloche.
• - Cardenal Samoré Pass.
• - Osorno.
• - Valdivia.
• - Bahía Blanca.
• - Neuquén "Neuquén (city)").
• - Zapala.
• - Pino Hachado Pass.
• - Concepción "Concepción (Chile)").
History of the road network
The Argentine road system began to develop in the 1930s, when the railway, a traditional means of transporting goods, began to enter a phase of decline, giving way to automobile transport. The initial design of the Argentine road network was exclusively radiocentric and centralized, converging in the Pampas Region, with the city of Buenos Aires as its main axis. In 1931, the country had only 2,000 km of permanent transit roads.
The first director of National Roads was Juan Pistarini, who was responsible for a large number of road and infrastructure projects. Pistarini takes American roads as a model and was considered a model to follow due to its ability to develop roads adapted to automobiles, shortening distances between cities and improving circulation. In terms of organization. Among Pistarini's most notable works are the construction of thousands of kilometers of routes, the change of direction of vehicular circulation to the right, and the construction of the Ezeiza International Airport and the highway that connects it with the city of Buenos Aires. Pistarini brought together regional and sectoral representatives, involving actors from the transportation and communications sectors in its direction, east-west and north-south corridors.
The State focused on the construction, conservation and improvement of roads, developing a national road system that connected provincial capitals, production centers, ports and railway stations. He was responsible for implementing the change to the right-hand traffic system, which was implemented on June 6, 1945.
Of all these routes, the most significant is National Route 40, which, running parallel to the Andes mountain range from the province of Jujuy to Santa Cruz "Province of Santa Cruz (Argentina)") forms the backbone of the country.
The primary and secondary networks were configured during the 1940s and, under the protection of having their own financing, had periods of sustained expansion until the mid-1970s.
As the State's financial situation worsened over the years, successive governments gradually appropriated the funds allocated for road construction.
The diversion of road funds from their original purpose caused the stagnation of the network and its progressive deterioration. Thus, the road network stopped growing in 1980.
The road system entered into crisis in 1989 with the advent of then President Carlos Menem, who decided to give concessions to private operators around 10,000 km of the primary and secondary networks, constituting an unprecedented experiment worldwide.
The busiest sections of these networks were grouped into "road corridors" that were offered in concession through public bidding. The concessionaires are responsible for the maintenance, expansion and improvement of the network, and in return they have the right to collect a toll with which they finance these activities, pay fees to the government and generate profits. Within their obligations, concessionaires have committed to maintaining routes within certain parameters called condition indexes, serviceability index, roughness index and friction index.
During the administration of President Néstor Kirchner, a National Road Plan was launched: from 2003 to 2015, the National Government made a strong investment in infrastructure works that allowed the construction of 1,300 km of new roads, paving 4,100 km of national routes, and covering the entire national road network with maintenance works. In addition, coverage of maintenance works was extended to the entire paved road network, when in 2003 only 50% of it was covered. Thanks to these investments, between 2003 and 2015 there was a 130% growth in the Argentine road network.[4] In the last years of the last century, Argentina dictated various regulations aimed at road financing, but specific financing was consolidated starting in 1931, when a 10% increase on the retail price of gasoline was ordered, “on a one-time basis,” for that purpose.
A year later, the National Highway Law was passed, which created the National Highway Fund, which included the figure of highway financing with fixed-sum taxes on fuels and lubricants. This law gave rise to the National Road Directorate, which since then has been the central administration body in charge of planning, building and maintaining the national road network. In the first two decades of the Fund's existence, there were intense alterations in its operation: the 15% tax on the sales price of lubricants was not applied until 1943, and the contributions from the National Treasury were transferred erratically and at levels lower than those projected for that purpose. This situation forced the fuel tax to be increased at the end of the 1930s.
The National Road Fund was cut on several occasions. In 1951, the DNV's percentage of participation in the Energy Fund created in 1948 was replaced by a fixed tax on fuel charged to said Fund. Meanwhile, towards the end of the fifties, the National Complementary Road Fund was created, financed by a tax on tires and vehicles whose weight exceeded 12 tons. The objective of this Supplementary Fund was to improve the service provided on 15,000 kilometers of trunk roads over a period of ten years.
As of 2006, the number of national routes is 118, to which we must add some complementary routes. As of December 30, 2005, the network was made up of 33,235 km of paved routes, 3,577 km of gravel and 1,500 of dirt.[5][6] The complaint was presented by Iguacel after an audit carried out in the first weeks of 2016 by two engineers and an accountant appointed by Iguacel, which determined that the prices of the works were market prices, that the proportion of works received by Austral Construction did not denote any anomaly, since the companies that already operate in the district have an advantage over other companies by not having to transport machinery and personnel over long distances and that the delay and price adjustments in the works were normal and were due to unforeseen events that appeared in the course of the work (appearance of oil or gas pipes or electric or telephone cables, climatic circumstances or land that had not been expropriated, etc.). The audit concluded that the difference between what was made and what was paid was only 0.1%. The auditors also highlighted that if the public works carried out in other provinces had been audited, it would have been observed that, as in Santa Cruz, companies from the district usually concentrate the majority of the work tendered.[7] During the development of the oral and public trial throughout 2020, various witnesses, including those who audited the work, confirmed the non-existence of irregularities.[8].
In 2016, President Mauricio Macri (owner of the majority of tolls in Argentina)[9][10] decreed a 500% increase in all tolls on national routes and highways.[11].
The planning and supervision of the Argentine road network is under the control of the National Directorate of Roads, Provincial Directorates of Roads, and other control entities with specific purposes, such as the ECB (entity of the Buenos Aires suburbs), the OCRABA (Organization of Control of the Access Network to Buenos Aires), whose functions partially overlap with those of the DNV (National Directorate of Roads) "National Directorate of Roads (Argentina)") and the DPV (Provincial Road Directorates)).
Considering that Argentina has a continental area of 2.8 million square kilometers, it can be concluded that the country has an underdeveloped road structure, which is due in part to its small population, a problem that is aggravated by the fact of the high demographic concentration in certain areas.
Argentina's road network is divided into trunk, secondary and tertiary roads.
• - Trunk road network. With a length of 40,332 km, they are those roads that have national jurisdiction. National routes, highways and concessioned highways constitute part of this network.
• - Secondary road network. whose extension is 198,289 km, it is made up of all the roads under provincial jurisdiction. All Argentine provincial routes are part of this network.
• - Tertiary road network. totaling about 500,000 km, it is made up of all the roads of municipal or communal ownership.
Trunk road network
The trunk road network in Argentina forms the most important and vital road infrastructure in the country. It is made up of the set of national routes whose function in the transportation system is to link the large centers of production and consumption and the national ports, which are the main means of entry and exit of merchandise from the country.
The national route network, with a length of 40,000 km, are the roads under national jurisdiction and make up the trunk road network. The number of national routes is 118, to which are added the so-called complementary routes. In 2005, the network was made up of 33,235 km of paved routes, 3,577 km of gravel, and 1,500 of dirt.[12] It includes 10,000 km of routes that have been granted in toll concessions to private companies, which are consortia formed mainly by construction companies.
Given the lack of financial capacity to maintain the road network, since the 1990s, the Argentine Government decided to give concessions to private operators of the national routes with the highest amount of traffic, around 10,000 km of the network. The busiest sections of these networks were grouped into "road corridors" that were offered in concession through public bidding.
These road corridors, together with the accesses to the cities of Buenos Aires and Córdoba, add up to just over 9,000 km of the main national routes, highways and provincial highways.
Secondary road network
The provincial route network makes up the country's secondary road network, which is made up of 179,000 km of routes and roads under provincial jurisdiction. Each province has a provincial road directorate, responsible for the maintenance, expansion and improvement of provincial routes.
The Provincial Road Directorate of Buenos Aires, based in the city of La Plata (capital of the province of Buenos Aires), has a hierarchy equivalent to the DNV (National Road Directorate). The province of Buenos Aires, with 36,000 km of provincial routes, brings together more than 20% of the country's secondary network, and with its 9,000 km of paved routes it concentrates almost 30% of the entire Argentine paved secondary network.
Provincial roads are financed with resources from the national treasury, with own resources, and with funds provided by international financial entities.
The items that the National Treasury assigns to road construction and maintenance are sent to the DNV (National Road Directorate), which distributes the funds through a federal co-participation system, which includes and weights various criteria such as:
• - surface area of each province.
• - number of inhabitants.
• - length of the road network of each province.
• - own funds contributed by each province for road maintenance.
Tertiary road network
It is made up of roads, streets and routes that depend on the municipalities or communes, which together add up to around 285,000 km, of which 100,000 are in the province of Buenos Aires. Given the characteristics of demographic concentration that the country has, two types of municipalities are differentiated: "urban" and "rural."
• - "Urban municipalities", among them is the city of Buenos Aires and the surrounding municipalities, which make up Greater Buenos Aires, which has 3000 km of streets in an area of 200 km². The cities of Córdoba and Rosario also stand out. Following a policy of decentralization, the Nation has transferred the administration and maintenance of some routes to the provinces and individuals, and the provinces, in turn, have transferred the maintenance of routes from provincial jurisdiction to the municipalities.
• - "Rural municipalities" are characterized by having a small population in a very large territory. Generally, the majority of the population is found in the headwaters. Rural roads called "alleys" consist only of compaction of the base soil, being improved in some cases with gravel or some type of stabilization.
Despite having very low traffic rates, municipal rural roads have significant importance for the economic life of the country, since they form the capillaries through which agricultural products for domestic consumption and export are sent to large cities, which has led the National Government to try to recover 60,000 km of natural roads.
Bioceanic corridors
Central interoceanic route
This future corridor will be an interoceanic communication route that will connect the ports of the Pacific (Coquimbo, Chile) and the Atlantic (Porto Alegre, Brazil) passing through the central region of Argentina, through cities such as Santa Fe "Santa Fe (Capital)") and Córdoba "Córdoba (Argentina)"), whose last urban unit is the second most important tertiary center within Argentina. This corridor will have as its main component the tunnels in the border Paso del Agua Negra. It is a “physical-territorial” instrument that would streamline trade between the countries of the Southern American Cone (Mercosur and Chile).
• - Porto Alegre.
• - São Gabriel.
• - Uruguayan.
• - Free Passage.
• - Currents.
• - Paraná "Paraná (Argentina)").
• - Santa Fe "City of Santa Fe (Argentina)").
• - San Francisco "San Francisco (Córdoba)").
• - Córdoba "Córdoba (Argentina)").
• - Carlos Paz.
• - Chamical.
• - San José de Jáchal.
• - Vicuña "Vicuña (Chile)").
• - La Serena "La Serena (Chile)").
• - Coquimbo.
Mercosur Chile Axis (IIRSA)[13]
Main cities that will be part of Chile:
• - Valdivia.
• - San Antonio "San Antonio (Chile)").
• - Santiago de Chile.
Main cities that will be part of Argentina:
• - Mendoza "Mendoza (Argentina)").
• - San Luis "San Luis (Argentina)").
• - Buenos Aires.
Main cities that will be part of Uruguay:
• - Sacramento Colony.
• - Montevideo.
• - Rio Branco.
Main cities that will be part of Brazil:
• - Porto Alegre.
• - Curitiba.
• - São Paulo.
• - Rio de Janeiro.
Main cities that will be part of Argentina:
• - Zarate.
• - Free Passage.
Main cities that will be part of Brazil:
• - Uruguayan.
• - Porto Alegre.
Main cities that will be part of Uruguay:
• - Montevideo.
• - Rivera.
Main cities that will be part of Brazil:
• - Rosario del Sud.
• - Santa Maria "Santa Maria (Río Grande del Sur)").
• - Passo Fundo.
• - Curitiba.
Southern Corridor (IIRSA)[14]
It will have two branches:
• - Bahía Blanca.
• - Viedma.
• - San Carlos de Bariloche.
• - Cardenal Samoré Pass.
• - Osorno.
• - Valdivia.
• - Bahía Blanca.
• - Neuquén "Neuquén (city)").
• - Zapala.
• - Pino Hachado Pass.
• - Concepción "Concepción (Chile)").
History of the road network
The Argentine road system began to develop in the 1930s, when the railway, a traditional means of transporting goods, began to enter a phase of decline, giving way to automobile transport. The initial design of the Argentine road network was exclusively radiocentric and centralized, converging in the Pampas Region, with the city of Buenos Aires as its main axis. In 1931, the country had only 2,000 km of permanent transit roads.
The first director of National Roads was Juan Pistarini, who was responsible for a large number of road and infrastructure projects. Pistarini takes American roads as a model and was considered a model to follow due to its ability to develop roads adapted to automobiles, shortening distances between cities and improving circulation. In terms of organization. Among Pistarini's most notable works are the construction of thousands of kilometers of routes, the change of direction of vehicular circulation to the right, and the construction of the Ezeiza International Airport and the highway that connects it with the city of Buenos Aires. Pistarini brought together regional and sectoral representatives, involving actors from the transportation and communications sectors in its direction, east-west and north-south corridors.
The State focused on the construction, conservation and improvement of roads, developing a national road system that connected provincial capitals, production centers, ports and railway stations. He was responsible for implementing the change to the right-hand traffic system, which was implemented on June 6, 1945.
Of all these routes, the most significant is National Route 40, which, running parallel to the Andes mountain range from the province of Jujuy to Santa Cruz "Province of Santa Cruz (Argentina)") forms the backbone of the country.
The primary and secondary networks were configured during the 1940s and, under the protection of having their own financing, had periods of sustained expansion until the mid-1970s.
As the State's financial situation worsened over the years, successive governments gradually appropriated the funds allocated for road construction.
The diversion of road funds from their original purpose caused the stagnation of the network and its progressive deterioration. Thus, the road network stopped growing in 1980.
The road system entered into crisis in 1989 with the advent of then President Carlos Menem, who decided to give concessions to private operators around 10,000 km of the primary and secondary networks, constituting an unprecedented experiment worldwide.
The busiest sections of these networks were grouped into "road corridors" that were offered in concession through public bidding. The concessionaires are responsible for the maintenance, expansion and improvement of the network, and in return they have the right to collect a toll with which they finance these activities, pay fees to the government and generate profits. Within their obligations, concessionaires have committed to maintaining routes within certain parameters called condition indexes, serviceability index, roughness index and friction index.