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Road Transport in Post-Independence Mexico

As Victoria knew, Mexico faced a serious challenge in attempting to improve a road network inherited from the colonial period that was limited in its range, speed, and traffic capacity. Mexican roads had achieved their apogee in the sixteenth century when a massive system of mule carting had "easily and efficiently" handled heavy loads. While carting might remain economically viable in the nineteenth century amid the less strenuous geographical conditions of Argentina, in Mexico it encountered daunting obstacles. The high cost of road maintenance in mountainous New Spain had left the road system to decay once the mining industry slumped in the seventeenth century. The enormous mule-drawn carros of the sixteenth century had disappeared. The push for material progress and defense of the colonies under the Bourbon dynasty had included no systematic effort at road improvement. Only very late in the colonial period, for example, did officials contract with the Consulados of Mexico and Veracruz (in 1796 and 1803, respectively) for road reconstruction along the vital route between the capital and the New Spain's chief international port. Only marginal improvements resulted. A generation later, journeying by stagecoach between Veracruz and Mexico City, the English anthropologist Edward B. Tylor exclaimed: "I have traveled on rough roads in my time, but on such a road as this never." He concluded that "no road anywhere else could possibly be so bad as a Mexican road," a view that reflected the prejudices of numerous other foreigners of the age.

Centered on Mexico City, the federal road system of the Mexican Republic stretched outward in all directions: east to the port of Veracruz, the country's most heavily traveled route; northward to Queretaro, where branches bifurcated, one stretching through the mining areas of Zacatecas and Durango onward to Santa Fe, the other running through the mineral regions of Guanajuato and San Luis Potosí, eventually reaching Texas; westward via Morelia to Guadalajara; southward through Cuernavaca to Acapulco; and southeast by way of Oaxaca to Guatemala. Federal roads provided nineteenth-century Mexico with a limited transport framework in poor operating condition. Only the northern routes and sections of the roads to Guadalajara and to Veracruz could accommodate wagon traffic. Many sections of the federal highway system simply consisted of mule trails, as did local feeder roads. In an era in which political instability and fiscal insolvency overshadowed Mexican public life, officials at all levels proved unable to tackle the urgent need for road repair. After the middle of the century, governments did devote more effort to road improvement, especially during the Restored Republic and the early years under President Porfirio Díaz ( 1876-80; 1884-1911). Nevertheless, official reports in 1877 still characterized only half of Mexico's 5,400 miles (8,700 kilometers) of federal highways as suitable for wheeled traffic.